Tings dread at Family Court: payments delayed
It was Shakespeare who said that hell hath no fury like that of a woman scorned. Where he received the inspiration for that line is unclear, but a visit to the Family Court this week conclusively proves that the playwright knew what he was talking about. Jacqueline Woods reports on how a glitch in the changeover to a new payment system has left many mothers high and dry.
Jacqueline Woods, Reporting
Every month several thousand Belizean women must climb three flight of stairs to collect their child support payments. On Monday, however, when many clients made the trip over to Family Court in Belize City, it was certainly not business as usual. A bulletin posted on the wall on the way up to the third floor of the Commercial Centre announced that effective January second, all payments should be collected at the Treasury Department. That announcement notwithstanding, no one has yet been able to collect their badly needed money.
Marie Alvarez, Client, Family Court
“We need for our money, we noh want hear nothing bout next day, next day. When you come the next day, they tell you come back Friday, when you come Friday they tell you come back next week. We need fi we money today.”
Marie Alvarez is just one of over three thousand women who have been unable to collect their maintenance payments.
Jennifer Decosta, Client, Family Court
“I come this morning about eight o’clock, I wait until nine-thirty and they say that no money noh deh, you have to wait until two hours time, they never open the window. I gone and come back and no money still noh ready, they tell me you have to wait until tomorrow, but I can’t wait until tomorrow because my grandchildren they really need this money, they want something to eat.”
While sufficient notice may not have been given to clients, both the Family Court and the Treasury Department have been working on the temporary measure to have persons receive their payments and not have them wait until the end of the month when it is expected that a new system will be formally put into place. Accountant General Carmen Barrow says the change is part of an ongoing project to update and make more efficient the way payments are disbursed by government departments.
Carmen Barrow, Accountant General, Treasury Department
“The roll out of the electronic processing of payments, not only as it relates to Family Court, but throughout the length and breath of the government service is really and truly a part and parcel of a financial management development project that government undertook, I think it was in 1999, so this is only another phase of the implementation that project.”
“What it is that the payments that we use to process manually, we are now moving to a system where we process them electronically. In terms of the Family Court and the Family Court is only one area that is being affected.”
In the short term, the good news is that persons waiting to collect their child support money will be able to do so on Wednesday at the Family Court…and the payments will be in cash and not vouchers.
Carmen Barrow
“The system that will be in place effective tomorrow morning, where persons, whether in Belize City or any of the district branches, can go to the Magistrate Court or to the Family Court where they ordinarily collect maintenance monies that will continue to be obtained until we inform the public that that has changed just so that we avoid any confusion. What obtains effective tomorrow morning that will continue until we tell people differently.”
Barrow would not specifically discuss how the Treasury Department will arrange the payments once the system has been formalised, but News 5 understands that clients of family court will no longer be paid by vouchers, but by cheques that they will need to cash at the bank. Jacqueline Woods reporting for News 5.
Although the Belize Family Court can expect a long line of anxious clients on Wednesday, News 5 understands that not everyone will be able to collect money. Apparently, only those persons in possession of a Social Security card or number will be able to receive payments.
