The moment you transgress against society's rules and get sentenced, you should loose all human rights, except perhaps a few basic ones, as well as the right to vote.
It appears that MTN has issues with internal systems in that customers still on the "old" system cannot be converted between contact and pre-paid.
I have been a pre-paid customer for many years and now want a contract. 4 separate attempts at buying a contract, multiple telephone, e-mail...