Ursula Owusu-Ekuful Rejects Claims of Personal Rift with Prof. Attafuah Over SIM Card Registration Exercise
Former Minister for Communications and Digitalisation, Ursula Owusu-Ekuful, has firmly dismissed allegations that personal disagreements or a lack of communication with Professor Kenneth Agyemang Attafuah, then Executive Secretary of the National Identification Authority (NIA), hampered the 2022–2023 nationwide SIM card registration exercise.
In a strongly worded statement issued on Friday, March 20, Owusu-Ekuful described the suggestion of bad blood or non-communication as “simply not true” and politically motivated.
She stressed that she and Prof. Attafuah maintained regular, professional engagement throughout the entire process.
“I have known Professor Attafuah for many years and at no point in time did we ever stop speaking to each other either personally or professionally,” she wrote.
“We may have had disagreements but I am too professional to allow differences of opinion to affect my work in any way.”
Key Clarifications from the Statement
Owusu-Ekuful outlined the facts surrounding the exercise:
The only notable technical limitation was that the NIA did not permit the SIM registration system to connect directly to their biometric database for the second stage of verification.
Despite this constraint, the process successfully registered almost 30 million SIM cards, all linked to valid Ghana Cards.
A 2025 audit later confirmed that over 80% of the facial biometrics captured during registration matched NIA records, demonstrating the robustness and effectiveness of the exercise.
No personal or institutional discord contributed to any challenges faced.
She insisted that claims linking supposed “personal issues” or “bad blood” to the exercise’s limitations are baseless and aimed at discrediting genuine progress achieved under the previous administration.
Response to President Mahama’s Comments
The former Minister’s rebuttal directly addresses recent remarks by President John Dramani Mahama during his Resetting Ghana Tour in the Bono Region. The President had suggested that the previous SIM registration was flawed partly due to disagreements between Owusu-Ekuful and Prof. Attafuah, which he claimed impacted the overall outcome.
Owusu-Ekuful urged the current government to recognize and build on the achievements of the 2022–2023 exercise rather than downplaying or politicizing it.
“Now, a lot has been said to create the impression that the problems with the exercise were because of personal issues or bad blood between institutions. That is simply not true,” she reiterated.
The SIM card re-registration exercise, launched in 2022 and extended into 2023, aimed to link all mobile SIMs to Ghana Cards to enhance security, reduce fraud, and improve national identity verification. It remains one of the largest biometric-linked telecom exercises in Africa.
The issue has now become a point of political contention, with the former Minister calling for facts over narratives in discussions about digital identity and telecom governance.
Her full statement has been widely shared on social media and official channels, drawing support from some quarters while reigniting debate on the legacy of the previous administration’s digital initiatives.
