Gov’t to begin blocking unidentified SIM cards

Mobile telephone users who failed to confirm the identification of their SIM cards had their lines suspended from June 30 if threats from the Ministry of Post and Telecommunications to that effect, are anything to go by.

The SIM card identification campaign that started three months ago, rounded off Thursday June 30 following a two-week extension of deadline to enable feet-dragging clients meet up with the exercise.

Those who failed to meet up with the compulsory exercise may now have their SIM cards blocked by their respective mobile telephony service providers, The Cameroon Journal learned.

The order for the three major mobile operators in Cameroon – MTN, Orange and Nextel to launch the identification campaign was issued by the minister, Libom Li Likeng Minette, in implementation of a prime ministerial directive of last year requesting all mobile telephone users to identify themselves.

Libom Likeng, while on a working visit to the Littoral region early this week, had reiterated the need for telephone users to identify their SIM cards, adding that there was going to be no room for any extension once the deadline of June 30 expired.

“It’s the responsibility of every citizen to identify themselves. This is what happens everywhere in the world; so why should it be different in Cameroon?” the Minister was quoted as asking rhetorically during her Douala trip on Tuesday.

“I therefore reiterate here that beyond the June 30 deadline, any existing unidentified telephone line will be systematically deactivated from its network” she cautioned.

Meanwhile, telephone users who are yet to register their SIM cards are pushing the blame on the litany of inconveniences that go with the process. Some of them decry the fact that they have to line up on queues and wait for several hours while others are expressing frustration with the lukewarm and nonchalant attitude of some of the mobile agents assigned by network providers to go about the activity.

For some, their lines were already suspended even before the June 30 deadline while others have been crying foul that their SIM cards have already been registered, yet their numbers are suspended.