A well-off businessman who pleaded poverty and failed to pay child support for his two children while he was employed as the COO at a national organisation has been ordered to 'step up' by the Western Cape High Court.

TimesLIVE reports that the court held that the father must pay his ex-wife R10 000 a month for each of their two children – backdated to their 2010 divorce, that he be stripped of all guardianship rights and be made to comply with the recommendations made by the family counsellor handling their matter.

The counsellor recommended that the children – now a 17-year-old son and 12-year-old daughter – remain in the primary care of their mother and that both parents participate in mandatory co-parenting intervention to assist them work together in the best interest of the children.

The father was also ordered to ‘participate in structured intervention with a professional skilled in positive parenting techniques’ to address the lack of attachment and the mistrust in his relationship with his children.

According to the court, the marriage was terminated in the Gauteng High Court (Johannesburg) in August 2010. It was an acrimonious split.

After the divorce the couple tried to reconcile on several occasions, all of which ‘dismally failed’. After this, ‘the parties frequently appeared in the Randburg Magistrate’s Court for various charges against each other’. 

Over a 15-month period the mother spent 24 days in court ‘defending various actions’ in 2013 and 2014.

During this time the father ‘stopped paying maintenance or paid frugally’ and removed the mother and the children from his medical aid without notifying her.

At the time, the father was employed as CFO of a large insurance firm and his salary was R107 665 per month. He applied for his child maintenance to be reduced to R3 000 per month per child with no other contributions to medical aid, private school fees and related expenses which he paid irregularly.

He resigned from his job in September 2013, reports TimesLIVE.

In November 2017, he started paying a flat R3 250 per month per child, which he increased to R3 500 per month per child a year later.

In 2020, the mother lost her job and had to again resort to legal action against the father for child support payments.

When she did a Google search for his name, she discovered that he had been appointed to his current position in 2016 – when he claimed to be unemployed.

Full TimesLIVE report