Maintenance: Delinquent dad facing jail time

A father who was errant in paying his court-ordered maintenance has been ordered to serve jail time if he did not pay his arrears owed to the mother of his two minor children. A Cape Argus says both parents turned to the Western Cape High Court (the father in a counter-application) but the court found in favour of the mother as the primary caregiver of the children. The father – a repeat contempt of court offender – was sentenced to 240 hours of periodical imprisonment over weekends until the stipulated number of hours had been reached. The sentence would have been suspended if he was able to pay the R16 000 maintenance arrears amount owed and if it was paid in full in January and complied with the Rule 43 order made in the High Court in May 2021.

The reasons given by Acting Judge Phillipa van Zyl detailed that the father failed to pay certain expenses which included his ex-wife and children’s monthly rent, DStv/Multichoice, Netflix and wi-fi subscription fees, yearly TV licence costs and the ex-wife’s monthly cellphone costs. Van Zyl said the parties were at loggerheads and their affidavits in these proceedings were ‘brimful of invective’, adding that this spilled over to litigation hearings where the aggression was palpable. ‘This is an unfortunate situation, because it bodes ill for any possibility of resolving the disputes in a civil manner. The state of affairs cannot be a happy one for the children,’ she said. The unpaid expenses giving rise to the contempt application consisted of rent for November and December 2024 for the applicant’s and the children’s residence – a total of R16 000.

The Cape Argus report notes it also included expenses payable in terms of the order for July to October 2024, a sum of R27 129. In his counter application to the court, the man had sought for the appointment of a curator ad litem to the parties’ two children. According to the ex-husband, the children were being neglected and exposed to dubious influences. The court labelled these reasons as speculative. ‘It was not supported by any evidence that would raise a red flag in relation to the children’s well-being. He cast aspersions on the applicant’s lifestyle – which he clearly disapproved of – but there was no evidence that the children were being harmed by the applicant’s lifestyle choices.’