PRESS RELEASE

Progress on the SIM card Validation/Verification

exercise

As a national security measure, government embarked

on an exercise of ensuring that every SIM card of an
individual gets validated and verified for purposes of
ensuring secure and safer communications. For that
matter, instructions were given to all telecom companies
through the regulator, UCC to enforce the exercise. The
same way banks embarked on their KYC (Know Your
Customer) principle, same should apply to the telecom
sector for SIM card holders.
The enactment of the Registration of Persons Act 2015
makes the national ID a mandatory document to use for
any form of registration services, SIM card registration
inclusive. This is explained in sections 65 (1) (a) to (l) and
66 (1) and (2) that elaborate on the use of information in
the register and Mandatory use of National ID cards
respectively. Therefore the requirement to validate and
verify SIM CARDS using the National Identity Card is
grounded in law. The Chief legal advisor of government
(Attorney General) correctly advised.

The overall objective of this exercise is purely to provide

national security safeguards. While mobile phone
telecommunications is one of the most commonly used
method of communication among citizens and has
greatly revolutionized the way businesses are run,
negative elements have also taken advantage of the same
means of communication to plan, coordinate, finance
and execute their criminal activities with ease and
sophistication.

The practice for the criminals has been to acquire new

Sim Cards that either are unregistered in any names or
fraudulently registered with wrong and falsified identities
for use in the execution of their criminal operations and
thereafter discard them so that they are not traced. The
sustainable solution to this criminality is to ensure that
all SIM cards and their users are properly registered
using the correct identities. Thus the need for
Verification and validation even for simcards in use .

While the government had set the first deadline a month

ago, it was found prudent to give an extension of one
month so as to enable many Ugandans that had
registered for the national IDs but had not collected
them.

I am glad to report that good progress has been

registered with many Ugandans responding positively.
From UCC records submissions from telecoms stand at
92% of all active SIM cards in the country.

I would therefore like to take this opportunity to thank

all Ugandans that took heed of this clarion call and
verified their SIM cards.

Enforcement of the deadline and measures taken by

government to address concerns of Parliament and
citizens

The deadline of 19th May set by government will be

enforced at Midnight. This is therefore to confirm that
the deadline stands and all unregistered, unverified and
un-validated SIM cards will be switched off initially for
voice communications. In other words the holders of
those cards will not be able to receive or make calls.
As a measure however, to mitigate loss of money for those
with Mobile Money deposits, the service will not be
switched off for the unregistered, unverified and un-
validated SIM cards. A transition period will be allowed
for those Mobile Money customers to either withdraw
their balances or transfer them to registered SIM cards or
to their banks. While withdrawal or transfer of Mobile
Money balances on unregistered/unverified numbers will
be enabled, loading/depositing of more money will be
disabled on the unverified cards.

Government would therefore like to assure the citizens

and Honorable Members of Parliament that no funds
deposited on Mobile Money will be lost in this exercise.
The regulator, UCC has been instructed by government to
inform all the telecom operators accordingly.

Another measure taken by government to ease the

registration, verification and validation process for
citizens as demanded by Parliament and citizens, is for
NIRA to allow new ID applicants whose IDs are still
pending processing to use their application form
numbers. Once they get their IDs, with the National
Identification Number (NINs) then they can re-submit
online using the USSD code *197#.

After the deadline is there any other opportunity to

verify/validate SIM cards?
While the switch off will disable voice communication on
the affected SIM cards, the exercise of verification
continues just as registration of citizens is continuous.
Any citizen with the requisite registration/verification
documents will then approach their service provider to
either register for any new SIM card or verify their old
but switched off cards.

Citizens can contact NIRA at their district offices. In

addition UCC has allocated NIRA a short code *216# to
enable citizens to know the status of their application
process.

Let us all be vigilant since national security is for the

good of all of us.

Frank K Tumwebaze, MP
Minister of ICT & National Guidance
Republic of Uganda