Not even a month after MTN halted free Twitter on the network, they’ve decided to become charitable again by giving their users free call minutes. Maybe we need to start calling people again rather than tweeting at them? Yeah, not gonna happen.

There are conditions, though — the call minutes are only valid to other MTN network users (which may be few and far between these days), and you’d have to sign up to MTN Zone.

MTN Zone is a prepaid billing price plan that gives subscribers discounts and special rates. These discounts are based on “…the user’s location and the time of day.” This is called ‘dynamic demand’, which essentially means you’ll be offered/charged discounts according to network traffic. More traffic = higher rate. Or at least that’s what we think.

Another condition is that you’ll need to reload with at least R10 airtime per day — which does accumulate to R300 per month. This isn’t bad considering the price of contracts these days.

And then, the final condition: You will have to use your free minutes to call another MTN user “…during the Mahala call hour in [your] current location.” Whenever that happens to be.

How to set it up

In the event that you’re not subscribed to MTN Zone, you can do it by dialling *136*4*2#. After that, you’ll need to opt-in to Mahala Calls by dialling *175*0#.

Lastly, make sure to recharge with R10 or more, after which you’ll receive an SMS confirming your Mahala Calls balance.