A total of 11.36 million out of the 22 million registered SIM Cards have been verified to match their details with the National Identity card database.
The development was revealed by the ICT Director of the National Identification and Registration Authority (NIRA), Clet Turiho at a news conference held on Monday at UCC headquarters on Bugolobi, Kampala.
According to Turiho, since the commencement of the exercise, a total of 13 million requests were sent to NIRA from telecommunications operators although only 11.36 million were found with information matching with the Databases and have so far been verified.
According to Eng. Godfrey Mutabaazi, the Executive Director for the Uganda Communications Commission (UCC), there are approximately 22 million registered active simcards in Uganda.
“We have about 22 million simcard users. But remember that some individuals have more than one simcard while some companies and organizations also have up to 50 simcards,” said Mutabaazi who added that the progress of the exercise is impressive.
Government requires all phone users to have their simcard registration details verified, to match with the National ID database.
The deadline for verification expires on May 19th, after which all unverified simcards will be disconnected.
Security Minister Lt. Gen Tumukunde already ruled out possibility of another extension of the deadline.
“The deadline for deactivation of unregistered sim-cards is May 19, 2017. For that matter, I don’t think we will have any issues or complaints.”
He also revealed that legal teams from telecom operators, Ministries of Security and Internal Affairs are yet to meet and study the possible legal implications of switching off unregistered cards.
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