We are standing on the precipice of a fourth national humiliation disguised as a technological necessity. When a tailor irreparably ruins your fabric through sheer incompetence, he does not arrogantly demand that you purchase a fresh yard of cloth so he can practice his trade on your dime.
Yet, the Ministry of Communications, Digital Technology and Innovations, the National Communications Authority (NCA), and the telecommunications monopolies demand exactly this. They are forcing a weary populace back into serpentine queues and digital bottlenecks to cover up the monumental procurement and architectural blunders of three failed exercises past.
Let us forcefully dismantle the official narrative. The state claims this upcoming exercise marks a bold reset. We are told, with straight faces in boardrooms, that unlike previous attempts, this one emphasizes seamless biometric integration with the National Identification Authority (NIA) database, aiming to eliminate queues and enable home-based verification. We are fed the fairy tale that the process will leverage API integrations between Mobile Network Operators (MNOs), the NCA, and the NIA, allowing real-time biometric cross-checks without new data collection for those already in the system.
Like seriously? Real-time biometric cross-checks? Real-time biometric cross-checks without new data collection for those already in the system? This breathtaking contradiction exposes a staggering, incurable poor understanding of basic database architecture and biometric science. If the data of those already in the system is intact, legible, and already captured, why on earth do we need a brand-new, disruptive national exercise in the first place?
You cannot promise “no new data collection” while simultaneously dragging a whole nation through a mandatory, re-registration circus. It is either the data is already there and ready for a backend server-to-server API sync, or the previous data is a corrupted mess because you bought useless contactless scanners that refused to talk to the NIA’s contact-scanner database.
Let us demand answers to the hardest questions: Where are the forensic audits detailing how much money was extorted from citizens and recovered during each of the three previous exercises?
Exactly where did all the millions accrued from deactivated accounts, including swallowed regular credit balances and frozen mobile money wallets, ultimately go? Did these funds vanish into private corporate ledgers or opaque state holding accounts while the vulnerable were left stranded?
The argument that we need a ground-up restart because the 2021–2023 exercise was a “waste of time” is an admission of institutional criminality. Millions of Ghanaians complied, spent scarce resources, and submitted to biometric captures, only to be told that millions were spent on incompatible hardware. Someone pocketed massive procurement commissions for that deliberate structural mismatch. Why should the citizen pay the price for a mismatch engineered by state ineptitude?
Simulation models place the total quantitative economic damage of that disastrous 2021–2023 exercise at an estimated GHS 1.84 Billion (approximately $160 Million USD). The single largest component of this staggering loss was the direct drain on worker productivity due to mass physical queues, accounting for over GHS 940 Million in lost labor opportunity cost. And now, these same architects of economic sabotage have the audacity to propose a fourth iteration wrapped in the same hollow buzzwords.
Worse still, the narrative paints the ordinary citizen as the architect of mobile money fraud, completely shielding the real culprits. Fraud in our digital space is overwhelmingly an inside job. It is engineered by rogue syndicates embedded within the very telecommunications companies that now masquerade as victims. The telcos possess the algorithms and telemetry to track every pesewa and pinpoint the geographical source of every scam. Yet, they feign ignorance while their networks feast on the masses. Where is the regulator? The NCA has utterly abdicated its mandate, acting as a praise-singer for corporate irresponsibility rather than wielding the punitive whip to compel telcos to clean their own digital houses.
Why must we endure another costly, disruptive cycle when seamless biometric integration already exists? There is zero justification for a new data collection exercise. The state can simply compel all telcos to convert previously collected biometric and biographical records into internationally recognized standards, specifically adhering to National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and International Organization for Standardization (ISO) formats, at their own corporate expense. Backed by the immediate threat of losing their operating licenses from the NCA and the Bank of Ghana, telcos can fund a backend, NCA-and-NIA-supervised verification architecture without tormenting a single subscriber.
The promise of a “digital-first approach” and home-based verification via apps or USSD is a lame, deceitful distraction. It completely ignores the endemic network bottlenecks, electricity crises, and application crashes that will lock millions out of their livelihoods. Furthermore, forcing telcos through another multi-million-cedi verification cycle, having reportedly drained resources at excessive costs per registration in previous rounds, only sets the stage for another round of arbitrary SIM deactivations and frozen funds.
A state that cannot integrate its own databases through backend technology has no moral authority to disconnect its citizens. This fourth exercise is not a digital reset; it is extortion by bureaucracy, a flagrant violation of constitutional rights, and a smokescreen for systemic corruption. The awakened Ghanaian rejects this cycle of impunity. We demand transparency on past funds, accountability for failed procurements, and an immediate halt to this oppressive charade. Enough is simply enough.
By By Chief Nku Chentiwuni
