Legislation: Blacklisting of maintenance defaulters on cards – Minister

An amendment to the Maintenance Act to blacklist maintenance defaulters with credit bureaus is in the pipeline. Justice & Correctional Services Minister Ronald Lamola said until now, the department had not implemented referrals to the credit bureaus of default orders as per the requirements of the Maintenance Amendment Act. ‘There is a gap in the current legislation which prevents the implementation of section 11 of Act 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,' he was quoted as saying by the Cape Times.

'Although 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’ credit rating,’ he said. Lamola noted that the department was monitoring defaulters through a database pending the amendment of the Act. ‘The department acknowledged the need for the speedy amendment of section 26 (2A) of the Act. In view of this gap, the department 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. An amendment will be made through the Judicial Matters Amendment Bill to be introduced in Parliament during the year.’