Free Sims on street corners

I recently moved back to South Africa and bought a Telkom sim from a retailer in town that was already RICAed. Unfortunately my phone was ****** and tried to do a sim swap and was told that I can't. I understand the law about having a aim card RICAed what I don't understand if Telkom is abiding by the law to make sure all sim cards are to be RICAed why is it that stores are selling Sims that are already RICAed and why are there people standing at street corners and taxi ranks handing out RICAed sim cards. I need my old number back as all of my business contacts has that number and my livelihood depends on it. How can I get my old number back. Your store and call center advised that the Sims being handed at street corners are for once off use only. Is this to promote crime and destroy the card afterwards.