<\/p>\n
Cape Town – An amendment to the Maintenance Act to blacklist maintenance defaulters with credit bureaus is on the cards.<\/p>\n
In a written reply Justice and Correctional Services Minister Ronald Lamola said until now, the department not implemented referrals to the credit bureaus of default orders as per the requirements of the Maintenance Amendment Act.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is a gap in the current legislation which prevents the implementation of section 11 of Act No. 9 of 2015 as it does not create a correlative responsibility for the credit bureaus to receive the default orders from the maintenance clerks and maintenance officers.<\/p>\n
\u201cAlthough the department developed an internal circular to guide the officials on how to deal with the forwarding of the default orders, this circular has not been implemented pending the legislative amendment of the provision of the Act, which will include the correlative responsibility for the credit bureaus to receive and use this information against the defaulters\u2019 credit rating,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Lamola also said the department was currently monitoring defaulters through a database pending the amendment of the Act.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe department acknowledges the need for the speedy amendment of section 26 (2A) of the Act.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn view of this gap, the department has requested the Legislative Development Branch to include the amendment of the Act to create this corresponding obligation to enable the Credit Bureaus to receive the orders and act accordingly.<\/p>\n
\u201cAn amendment will be made through the Judicial Matters Amendment Bill to be introduced in Parliament later on during the year.\u201d<\/p>\n
Asked by DA MP Annerie Weber about the number of maintenance defaulters since the Act became operational, Lamola said the \u201cblacklisting\u201d provision of the Act could not be implemented as it stood and the department could not provide statistics on the number of defaulters who have been blacklisted.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Department of Justice and Constitutional Development is unable to provide the breakdown figures of the blacklisted persons in each maintenance court and province for the specified periods since the provision could not be implemented as indicated above.\u201d<\/p>\n
However, Lamola said there were 77 778 applications made in respect of civil applications in maintenance courts in the 2020-21 financial year.<\/p>\n
His response showed that Gauteng led the pack with 14 380 applications, followed by Limpopo with 11 553 and the Western Cape with 11182.<\/p>\n
The Eastern Cape recorded 9 320 civil applications, KwaZulu-Natal 8 087, Free State 7 619, Mpumalanga 5670, North West 6 489 and Northern Cape 3 478.<\/p>\n
Lamola also said there were 4 169 criminal applications for maintenance that were lodged in courts during the same period.<\/p>\n
The Western Cape recorded the highest number of criminal applications at 1 121, followed by the Eastern Cape with 895, Free State 785, Limpopo 538, Northern Cape 416, Gauteng 262, North West 65, Mpumalanga 56 and KwaZulu-Natal 31.<\/p>\n
Cape Times<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Cape Town – An amendment to the Maintenance Act to blacklist maintenance defaulters with credit bureaus is on the cards. In a written reply Justice and Correctional Services Minister Ronald Lamola said until now, the department not implemented referrals to the credit bureaus of default orders as per the requirements of the Maintenance Amendment Act. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[12940,12939,5233],"class_list":["post-137767","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-politics","tag-blacklisted","tag-defaulters","tag-maintenance"],"yoast_head":"\n