Pay your maintenance or go to jail, judge tells deadbeat dad

A wealthy Johannesburg dad has a six-month prison sentence hanging over his head — and will go to jail if he continues to flout maintenance court orders.

Johannesburg high court judge Portia Nkutha-Nkontwana has declared the father of two to be in contempt of two court orders, granted by fellow judges in 2018 and 2021.

The judge suspended his sentence of six months on condition that he pay arrear maintenance and related expenses totalling more than R274,000 within three days of her order. She also ordered him to pay the costs of the urgent application, brought by his estranged wife, on a punitive scale.

The couple is involved in an acrimonious divorce and, the judge said, it seemed the husband was trying to “outlitigate” his wife.

In 2018, the estranged wife secured an order that he must pay R30,000 maintenance a month. On top of this, she and the children were permitted to continue taking groceries from the family business, a supermarket.

The man was also required to pay certain other household expenses and retain his estranged wife and children on his medical aid and pay reasonable medical expenses not covered by the medical aid.

This order was later amended in 2021, adding a further R7,000 (for groceries) onto the original R30,000 maintenance.

Nkutha-Nkontwana noted this was not the first time the wife had approached the court for a contempt order. The first time was in June, when the man refused to pay a utility bill. He was directed to do so and, the judge said, had seemingly done so.

But between December 2022 and September 2023, he had failed to pay for groceries, maintenance, cellphone bills and medical expenses.

On top of that he was “blatantly” refusing to pay the elder child’s university fees because they were not part of the original orders. If the outstanding fees of R60,000 are not paid, the child won't graduate this year.

“The applicant is totally dependent on the respondent for maintenance. Her bank account statement shows a balance of R106.74. She also has health issues which include autoimmune diseases. Yet the respondent is refusing to pay her medical expenses as per the rule 43 (pre-divorce maintenance) order,” Nkutha-Nkontwana said.

His contention ... is flawed. He seems to forget that they are still married and as such he cannot divest himself from the duty to maintain the applicant

—  Judge Portia Nkutha-Nkontwana

“She has demonstrated that she does not have the means to litigate and as such tried to obviate same by sending e-mails with schedules of arrears to the respondent through his attorney of record, but to no avail.”

The judge said the attorney conceded having received these but said he was either travelling or was busy with other matters. His client, the attorney said, had never even looked at the schedules because he was a director of a company “and was busy seven days a week”.

“Clearly the respondent is not a man of straw but a hardworking businessman with many assets, including some abroad.”

“His contention that the applicant should continue depleting her assets or live on borrowed funds pending his application (for a variation of the rule 43) is flawed. He seems to forget that they are still married and as such he cannot divest himself from the duty to maintain the applicant.”

Nkutha-Nkontwana said the man had shown “blatant disdain” for the maintenance orders and had not put up any evidence of his financial position to show that he could not afford to pay.

She agreed that he was attempting to outlitigate his estranged wife and that he was acting wilfully and with mala fides.

“Since he is a repeated contemnor, there is no reason he should not be committed to imprisonment.”