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Uganda to streamline SIM card registrations

Uganda to streamline SIM card registrations
Staff Writer
By Staff Writer, ITWeb
18 Jul 2012

Uganda Communications Commission (UCC), the regulator of the telecoms sector in the country, plans meeting with telecoms companies to discuss how the SIM card registration process could be streamlined.

In March this year, Uganda's telecommunications regulator launched a one year SIM card registration exercise aimed at tackling ICT security issues and crime in the country.

The SIM card registration drive is expected to end in March 2013.

Uganda Communications Commission Executive Director, Godfrey Mutabazi, said the exercise sought to check use of mobile phones for illegal activities, phone thefts, and unsolicited hate and threat messages.

There are 16 million active SIM cards in the country, according to the UCC.

Mutabazi said that of the country’s 16 million active SIM cards, 8 million have yet to be registered.

“We need to establish how far they (cellphone subscribers) gone as far as the exercise is concerned, establish the challenges and the way forward on this matter” Isaac Kalembe the media and public relations specialist for UCC.

Factors believed to be delaying the SIM card registration process are demands by UCC officials' to have applicants produce passport photos during registration..

As a result, subscribers have reportedly complained about this requirement and the long time periods it takes to register a SIM card.

Kalembe said UCC was proposing to also consider an online registration exercise in order to allow many more people get registered before the government deadline approaches.

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