5 months to cancel a deceased contract and still not done!

It is with great frustration I write this complaint. I requested that MTN Cancel my Dads contract on the 19th May 2020. I have been in contact with the call centre, I have emailed the customer services email, I have been to MTN twice, I have now also been in contact with the legal department, who have only now in August responded to me advising I need to pay for the phone on the contract or hand it in. However, I would like to know why the contract continues to run since May, despite my various requests on email and otherwise requesting it be cancelled with immediate effect. I am not sure why we should be liable for the contract still running over 5 months after the request. I am happy to pay for outstanding on the phone, which i believe is R4056 for contract cancellation. Not sure why I am held liable for the outstanding amounts since it is due to MTN's poor service that the contracts remain intact. Noting when i sent the request in May they cancelled the wrong contracts (the opposite of that which was requested), which to had to be rectified through a painstaking effort. Surely, what is suppose to be the top Cell phone service provider, they should have a better customer service response. Noting, I am not even able to talk to a legal department representative (they dont have a direct line). Unacceptable, as a last resort we now again use Hellopeter, lets hope this attempt is not useless once again with MTN.