Police have nabbed 43 maintenance defaulters, who collectively owed more than R500 000, since December 2.
|||Cape Town - Police have nabbed 43 maintenance defaulters, who collectively owed more than R500 000, since December 2.
Eleven were arrested during a tracing operation in Worcester this week.
Operation Isondlo, which was launched at the start of the month, aims to find 296 maintenance defaulters who owed an estimated R2.68 million.
The top 20 defaulters represented 60 percent, or R1.6m, of the total value of maintenance arrears in the province. The top maintenance defaulter, a Strand man who owed more than R223 000, has appeared in court after he handed himself over earlier this month.
Advocate Hishaam Mohamed, regional head of the Department of Justice, said the department was working closely with the police to apprehend three types of defaulters:
* Those whose warrants of arrest had been sent by courts to the relevant police stations, but were returned to the courts marked “untraceable”.
* Those whose warrants of arrest remained at police stations.
* Those defaulters for whom warrants of arrest had been issued in the first six months of this year.
Meanwhile, some mothers say they were battling to receive maintenance of R195 000 and R411 000 respectively. A Bergvliet mother said she has been in and out of court eight times, but was still battling to receive money owed. “I have to go to court month after month. He (her ex-husband) was ordered to pay maintenance but he has defaulted and owes R195 000.”
Another mother, with two children, has been battling to have her ex-husband pay maintenance for the past two years. He allegedly owes R411 000 and was ordered to pay R6 000 per child.
“He lives in Constantia and is worth a couple of million,” she said.
Cape Argus