Family Court tries hard to prepare Christmas payments
With Christmas less than five days away, most Belizeans are scrambling to find the time—and money—to clean, shop, cook, and bake. And as the pressure mounts, agencies such as the Belize Family Court are under added stress trying to process child support money for thousands of single parents across the country. According to Family Court Director Margaret Nicholas, they are aware of the tight situation and are doing the best they can with their staff of only four persons.
Margaret Nicholas, Director, Belize Family Court
“Mothers want to be able to give their children the kind of Christmas that they deserve and therefore we try to double up on our efforts to ensure that monies are paid out before the twenty-fourth of December and so it is extremely hectic for us at this time.”
“People are always anxious about their monies, particularly people who are unemployed, because I don’t think that the people who come to the family court come because they want to come, I think the come because they need to come and they need the money for their children. To raise a child is extremely expensive and whenever the money is not ready or is not here, some of them get extremely riled up and sometimes even swear and threaten some of our staff and those are some of the issues we have to work with.”
“I would just like to ask all the fathers who are supposed to make payments for December if they can make them as early as possible and that is before the twenty-fourth of December because remember it is a process and so the monies come in, we have to invoice them, they have to be approved first and second and cheques have to be made and that could take a day, two days or more in some cases. So I am calling upon them and all the other organisations where salaries are attached for them to try and get those lists to us in time so that we can try and get them finished and to the mothers I ask them to bear patience with us.”
According to Nicholas, they process about a thousand payments a week.
