Times Of Swaziland: CHILD MAINTENANCE HEADACHE FOR ESWATINI

CHILD MAINTENANCE HEADACHE FOR ESWATINI
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Ntombi Mhlongo on 22/03/2021 14:25:00


MBABANE – Eswatini, through the Deputy Prime Minister’s Office, is
challenged when it comes to tracing of parents or guardians who default on
paying child maintenance.
The kingdom has been recording an increase in child maintenance cases, causing a
headache for maintenance officers as the parents evade paying and/or cannot be
traced. Recently, this publication reported how in the past three months, the
Manzini Magistrates Court has been issuing at least a garnishee order every
three days against a member of the Umbutfo Eswatini Defence Force (UEDF). The
orders for maintenance were issued by the Manzini Magistrates Court since
mid-October 2020 to late January 2021. Garnishment is a legal process for
collecting a monetary judgment on behalf of a plaintiff from a defendant.
Garnishment allows the plaintiff to take the money or property of the debtor
from the person or institution that holds that property. In the Kingdom of
Eswatini, the legal instrument that deals with maintenance issues is the
Children’s Protection and Welfare Act (CPWA) 2012.
Education
Section 212 of the Act stipulates that a parent or any other person who is
legally liable to maintain a child or contribute towards the maintenance of the
child is under a duty to supply the necessities of food, clothing, health, life,
education and reasonable shelter for the child. As per the provisions of the
Act, the Department of Social Welfare carries a mandate to ensure that the basic
needs of children are met through enforcing maintenance laws to parents who
infringe on the rights of children who need to be taken care of by their
parents. The DPM’s Office’s annual performance report for the financial year
2020/21 states that maintenance complaints still continue to lead the
department’s service delivery.
“In the Social Welfare Offices around the country, there are sometimes serious
challenges experienced towards getting respondents to comply with invitations
because of changed addresses and contact numbers, and some just defy the
invitations. Subsequently, such challenges significantly contribute towards
increasing the number of cases that are kept pending for longer periods,”
reads part of the annual report. It further states that the department refers
such matters to court for purposes of obtaining garnishee orders in cases
wherein the respondents fail to comply with the agreement made at the Social
Welfare Offices. In neighbouring South Africa, it was announced last month that
the Department of Justice and Correctional Services says it’s coming for child
maintenance defaulters who don’t want to be found.
According to IOL News, the department will soon implement a new system using
various online databases and ‘information hubs to track and trace parents who
refuse to pay child maintenance. It plans to use company registrations,
cellphone numbers registered with network service providers, credit bureau info,
vehicle registrations, and other paper trails to find maintenance defaulters.
The new system, according to the publication, will help the courts finalise more
cases and assess those errant parents who should be paying child support.
The latest developments in the neighbouring country raise the question whether
the Kingdom of Eswatini could go the same route.
This publication engaged the Deputy Prime Minister’s Office’s Social Welfare
Department on the issue and, through its Communications Department; it confirmed
that it faced challenges.
The department said all it did was mediate on issues of maintenance whereby it
brought the concerned parties and discussed on how a child could be maintained
and further advised the parties on the laws regulating maintenance. “Once
parties reach a consensus, then an agreement is made and the expectation is that
parties will be bound by the agreement. We do not have a mechanism of tracing
maintenance defaulters as in most cases we rely on the information that is given
to us whether by the complainant or the respondent. We do not have means to
trace a defaulter if their place of employment, abode or contact is not known as
we do not have any other mechanism to do the tracing. Once a person changes his
or her employment without giving notice, it becomes a problem to trace him or
her,” the department stated.