New law could blacklist parents who avoid child maintenance

On Friday, the two organisations, in partnership with the Consumer Profile Bureau, signed a memorandum of understanding to blacklist parents who default on child maintenance payments.

However, full implementation is expected to take time, as the government needs to create a database to manage and share information without making debtors' details public.

SJF executive director Anneke Greyvenstein said the project seeks to improve efficiency by connecting maintenance courts, service providers, and credit industries.

“We started working with maintenance matters in 2006, then we realised that the current Maintenance Act of 1999 was not implemented fully because it only focuses on criminal procedures, and the court officials do not have enough resources to handle the administrative work,” he explained.  

The research’s foundation revealed that up to 70% of parents fail to meet their maintenance obligations within the first two years of a maintenance order being issued. 

This is in spite of it being a criminal offence. 

Greyvenstein told Jacaranda FM News that they also have other mechanisms to help with the child maintenance process.

“We have been doing family mediations, training mediators and developed a co-parenting app.

“Parents should not rely solely on the child support grant to care for their children. Child grants are almost nothing, it’s not enhancing the children’s education, dietary requirements and so forth. You can’t live on the amount of money parents get for a child’s grants. Parents need to step up to their responsibilities.”

The foundation has also urged the digitisation of the garnishee order to prevent the current approval delays from the defaulting parents’ employers.  

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