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The Ghana Telecom Chamber has called for an extension of the SIM card registration exercise to allow people who faced procedural anomalies to rectify them and prevent the deactivation of their numbers. The Chief Executive of the Chamber, Kwaku Sakyi-Addo said �the telecom operators would prefer an extension because many people have not registered but more significantly some registered but their registration have been deemed invalid due to anomalies either with their ID details or how their details were recorded by the registration agents.� He said an extension would facilitate a clean-up, which would enable many people to register. Mr. Sakyi-Addo noted that something as simple as wrong spelling of name or mixing up of ID numbers could render a registration invalid through no fault of the subscriber so there was need for more time to enable those anomalies to be corrected. �An extension will be to the benefit of subscribers who took the pain to register but have some small errors and also allow those who have not registered to do so,� he said. He however stated that the final mandate for an extension rested with the National Communications Authority (NCA) and until the Authority authorizes an extension, the operators would stand by the original directive to deactivate all unregistered numbers on their respective networks on July 1, 2011. SIM Card registration began in Ghana in June 2010 and it is scheduled to end on June 30, 2011 after which all unregistered cell phone numbers would be deactivated permanently and owners of those phone numbers would lose their numbers and information on their SIM cards for good. Weeks to the deadline for SIM Card registration, the NCA came out with a registration verification report which said over five million registered numbers, accounting for 30 per cent of all registered SIM cards, could not be verified either due to the use of fake ID cards or procedural anomalies. The NCA said those SIM cards, which have not been registered at all would all be deactivated by the various operators immediately after the June 30 deadline. But certain civil society groups like IMANI Ghana and some individual legal practitioners have challenged the NCA�s authority to deactivate unregistered phone numbers, saying subscribers had contracts with their respective network operators and not the NCA. IMANI has also blamed the inability of people to register with valid ID cards on the ineptitude of state institutions charged with issuing national ID cards, saying the citizens could not be blamed for the failings of those institutions and government�s refusal to call them to order. The NCA insisted it had authority to direct the network operators to follow rules and regulations, but had directed the operators to do so, adding that the operators were legally bound to follow the directive. Critics of the NCA�s position had also suggested that the deactivation should be gradual instead of immediate. But Kwaku Sakyi-Addo said until the NCA took those suggestions onboard and issued another directive the operators would go ahead with the original directive. �The operators would prefer an extension but the NCA is the only authority that can order an extension and until the NCA rescinds its decision, its decision stays and the operators would only have to go by that,� he said. Kwaku Sakyi-Addo said the NCA should be in the best position to tell whether verification should have been done earlier. The Ghana Telecom Chamber speaks for all telecom operators in the country on common industry-related issues.