Man ordered to pay P340k in child maintenance
Spira Tlhankane | Monday August 25, 2025 10:23
Molatlhegi (appellant) was supposed to pay P3500 per month as maintenance for his two minor children when his divorce with ex-wife Ontlametse Chabata Molatlhegi (respondent) was finalised in 2018. After approximately five years of non-payment, Molatlhegi’s ex-wife instituted contempt proceedings in 2023 at the High Court.
Confronted with contempt proceedings that resulted in, amongst other things, a committal order against him, the appellant applied for variation of that order. The High Court dismissed the application with costs; hence, his recent appeal, which was also dismissed by the apex court.
In the grounds of appeal, Molatlhegi asked that the 2018 order be varied and replaced with an order substituting the maintenance amount of P3500 with P500.
In a recent judgment, CoA’s Justice Baaitse Nkabinde dismissed the appeal, citing that Molatlhegi’s conduct is unacceptable and cannot be countenanced. “The respondent has solely taken care of the children over the years. According to the appellant, she should be imprisoned for 90 days. This does not only demonstrate unreasonableness on his part but also coldness and total disregard for the best interest of the minor children,” Nkabinde said when she delivered the ruling.
Nkabinde said Molatlhegi sought an order of contempt against the mother of his children for her alleged disobedience to the 2018 order by her alleged refusal to allow him access to the children, and therefore that she be committed for 90 days. “Curiously, five years after the order, the appellant suggested that he was denied access to the children and seemed, reprehensibly, in a retaliatory attitude, to use that as a reason for not paying maintenance”.
Nkabinde added that Molatlhegi’s ground that the court failed to give direction on the issue of access to the children also lacks substance. “The 2018 order granted the appellant access to the minor children; that order should stand. The interests of the minor children concerned are of paramount importance concerning issues about their welfare. Therefore, courts, as custodians of the minor children, have wide discretion. In this regard, this Court has spoken,” she further said in the judgment.
The background of the case is that contempt proceedings were instituted against Molatlhegi in 2023, and that he be committed to prison conditional upon payment within 30 days of the total plus interest. The appellant was duly served with the application but failed to enter an appearance to defend. Later, according to the court, Molatlhegi filed a condonation notice accompanied by a supporting affidavit for his late filing of notice of opposition to the contempt application.
Further, it is said that the appellant explained that his delay as having been occasioned by his business with and being held up by preparation for his marriage, which took place on May 4, 2023. He admitted having fallen into arrears, which, according to him, he intended to defend because at the time of the order in 2018, he was unemployed. He also mentioned that he was prevented from seeing the children and eventually fell in arrears.
Furthermore, according to the court, by May 19, 2023, despite undertaking to file the answering affidavit, the appellant had not kept his promise. A warrant of civil imprisonment was issued in July 2023, directing the messenger of the High Court, Francistown, to arrest the appellant and deliver him to the officer in charge at the prison until the said total amount was paid or until the expiration of 90 days from the date of his incarceration.
It is said that the issuance and subsequent service of the warrant clearly signaled trouble for the appellant, and he urgently rushed to the High Court in August 2023 to stop his arrest on the basis that his liberty would be curtailed in a manner that would be prejudicial and affect his chances to rescind the 2018 order and intended application for rescission. Nonetheless, the court says Molatlhegi then admitted the default and that he was served with a contempt application. He explained that upon arrest while at work and in front of his colleagues, his employer assisted him and managed to pay P20,000 to honour the order.
Later, according to the court, Molatlhegi blamed his former attorney, Thembani Jeremiah, for betrayal as he allegedly failed to protect his interests. He alleged that the attorney ‘forced’ him to sign the settlement agreement in 2018. In his words, he said he couldn’t have signed the settlement agreement “in his full sense knowing he was not employed. The High Court delivered a ruling on April 16, 2024, and dismissed Molatlhegi’s variation application with costs. The court rejected the alleged coercion to sign the settlement agreement.
The High Court also considered the appellant’s attempt to vary the order as an afterthought to escape the dire consequences of his failure. The judge in the lower court found the appellant to be dishonest as he had not mentioned that he was employed by the Academy Hospital, but boldly submitted that he had no means to support himself. Observing that Molatlhegi cared less about the interests of the children, the court found that the latter would not have applied to vary the 2018 order had he not been held in contempt and committed to prison, and that he abused the court process. Accepting that the arrears amounted to a large sum of money which would be difficult for Molatlhegi to pay if the arrears continued to increase, the court decided, to alleviate the situation, to suspend the maintenance order for 12 months with effect from April 16, 2024. Molatlhegi didn’t pay and decided to take the matter to the CoA.
In the end, the CoA said no evidence should influence the court to accept the appellant’s baseless accusations against his former lawyer. “One wonders what benefit would Jeremiah derive from forcing his client to sign the settlement agreement for the latter to obtain a divorce? Explicitly from the evidence, the appellant himself, who had filed for divorce, later neglected his children and busied himself with arrangements to remarry. That had nothing to do with the attorney. In my view, the High Court was correct in rejecting the appellant’s spurious accusations and the attempt to vary the order as afterthoughts,” Nkabinde emphasised in the CoA judgment.