world

The Ghanaian government launched the Telecom Subscriber ID campaign in October 2021. More than a year later, millions of people still have not linked their SIM cards to their ID cards despite the extension of the deadline to many times.

The Ghana National Communications Authority (NCA) plans to disconnect some 11.1 million active SIM cards on May 31, if they are not registered before. The initiative was unveiled by Joe Anokye (pictured), chief executive of the regulator, at a press conference in Accra on Wednesday April 26.

According to Mr. Anokye, the SIM cards concerned are those which have not yet started the registration process. The SIM cards of Ghanaians on mission abroad, foreign diplomats in the country and refugees will be exempt. Citizens who have not yet received their national biometric cards can also continue to use their SIM cards following the deadline.

The campaign to identify Ghanaian telecom subscribers started on October 1, 2021 and was due to end on March 31, 2022. However, the deadline was extended to July 31, as a large majority of SIM cards had not yet been registered and a large part of the population had not yet obtained the national biometric identity card. The government had to extend the deadline to September 30 and then to November 30.

According to official figures, around 25 million out of 36.57 million SIM cards have been fully registered as of April 25. They have been linked to 13 million unique national biometric cards. Some 6.4 million SIM cards that did not complete both stages of the process were deactivated as of March 10.

Akonye believes that registering SIM cards will help build trust in Ghana’s digital ecosystems. “As we continually increase the use of digital technologies in all aspects of our daily lives, the critical role of the SIM registration exercise cannot be overlooked. In fact, Ghana’s digital transformation agenda relies in part on a credible SIM registry and a competitive telecommunications industry,” he added.

Ecofin

“There is a real risk that the crisis will spread to neighboring countries in the region,” Janez Lenarcic, the EU Commissioner for Humanitarian Crisis Management, told Welt am Sonntag. Other states that are “extremely fragile” border Sudan. “The consequences would be disastrous. Nobody can want that – that’s why the first priority must be to bring the two warring parties to their senses,” he said.

Lenarcic expects the situation in Sudan to worsen, which was already dramatic before the current crisis and “now can only get worse”. “The country is on fire, lacking everything: clean water, food, medicine, fuel,” said the commissioner.

Hundreds of humanitarian programs across the country have been suspended, warehouses looted and transportation that aid workers rely on destroyed. The two warring parties alone are responsible for this – but the civilian population of Sudan has to “pay for it,” said Lenarcic.

The ongoing violence in Sudan might also plunge the entire region into a humanitarian crisis. “Even before the fighting broke out, a third of the country’s population was starving, now there is a shortage of everything and food prices are skyrocketing,” said WFP Germany director Martin Frick. Similar price increases are also occurring in the neighboring countries of Chad and South Sudan.

Both countries have taken in thousands of refugees since the fighting began in Sudan. “In South Sudan, which is sinking into floods due to the climate and drying up elsewhere, food prices have risen by 28 percent in a very short time,” said Frick. Added to this is the tense situation in the Horn of Africa, where following six failed rainy seasons, the need is also at a record level.

In Sudan, de facto President Abdel Fattah al-Burhan has been fighting his deputy Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo with the help of the military since April 15. He is the leader of the influential paramilitary group Rapid Support Forces (RSF). The two generals had taken over the leadership of the country with around 46 million inhabitants through two joint military coups in 2019 and 2021.

Britain has ended the evacuation of its citizens from Sudan. The last British military flight left the African country late on Saturday evening, the Foreign Ministry said in London on Sunday morning. A total of at least 1,888 people were taken out of the country on 21 flights. It is estimated that thousands of Britons might still be in the country.

Former Sudanese Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok stressed that “if Sudan is going to reach a point of real civil war… then Syria, Yemen and Libya will be just small duels.”

He expressed his belief, during an event in Nairobi, that this “would be a nightmare for the world,” noting that it would have great repercussions. And he considered that the current conflict is a “meaningless war” between two armies, stressing that “no one will emerge victorious from it, and for this reason it must stop.”

A bloody power struggle broke out between the commander of the Sudanese army, Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, and the commander of the Rapid Support Forces, Muhammad Hamdan Dagalo, in mid-April. This conflict resulted in no less than 528 deaths and 4,599 injuries, according to figures announced by the Ministry of Health on Saturday, but the outcome is likely to be higher.

It is noteworthy that Hamdok had assumed the presidency of the first government of Sudan during the turbulent transition to civil rule, before he was overthrown and detained in a coup. Although he was reinstated following that, he later resigned.