Collecting child support money a “three days running”- frustrated mothers

Dec 08, 2012 News

---

 

 

Single mothers who depend on every dime to provide their children with fulfilling Christmases say that this year will be more difficult, since collecting child support payments from the Georgetown Magistrates’ Court has become an unbearable hassle.
They describe the process of collecting their children’s entitlement and an additional source of income for making their holidays great, as an intolerable two, sometimes three-day worry.

One woman said that “single mothers got to take one whole day off from work just so that we can stand in the line at the court to sign for we cheques. Then after waiting there for hours, we does have to go back the next day to collect the cheques.
“Most of the time, by the time we get it, the bank does be closed and we does have to take time off  from work again, to go to the Bank of Guyana and cash the cheques”.
Several of the women who came from various parts of the country to collect the monies from the Magistrates’ Court at Middle Street on Tuesday, last, complained about the inconvenience.
Kaieteur News understands that the “two days of running” started after another fraud pertaining to the child support funds was unearthed last September.
The women are pleading with those in authority to change the uncomfortable procedure, since only hardworking single mothers are suffering.
“We are poor women struggling to do everything we can to make our children happy, and if doing what we doing now ain’t hard enough, we getting more and more worries,” one mother said.
She noted that she was already warned last month about taking two consecutive days off from work every month. “If I get fired what will happen then? Will them extremely slow workers here at the court be blamed for that?” the woman queried.
The women argued that the situation is such because the staffers who are handling the child support monies are “incapable, and slow”.
“Is not like is anything hard. All we does got to get is signatures. And that does take them a whole day. This thing could be made easy on we if only these people had feelings and if they de doing what the people money paying them to do. We does be so stressed out worrying about we two days pay that we losing out and these people in here don’t care. Anybody could even go in and see when the girl signing the cheque how long she does take. Like is a masterpiece work of art,” one of the women said.
Another lamented that she was not even aware of the new two-day procedure and had gone to the court with just a one- way transportation fare. She explained that she was then forced to beg the other women there for the return fare.
“Them other women didn’t have much, but them pool li’l bit, li’l bit and I got to go home. I drink water to sleep that night. I had to buy textbooks for my child the day before, and I didn’t get paid yet, so I didn’t have any money. I was waiting for my child’s father to send money. I had to send my daughter for dinner at my mother’s house,” the woman complained.
“This is Christmas time. We got children looking to us for something nice. My daughter almost finish High School and she never went to a school party before. I was hoping to make everything perfect for she last one, but if this continues I gon can’t do that.
“Imagine if I tek another day off to come here and then I get send home from work, what gon happen then?” another woman asked.
Another woman claimed that she had been waiting at the court for many hours with her less-than-a-month-old baby. She noted that she was still experiencing post partum pains, but since she had no money at home and other children to take care of, she had to “struggle” and take the baby with her.
The woman told this newspaper that she had been waiting for many hours just to give her signature so that she can go back the following day (yesterday) to uplift her cheque.
“They told me that I got to come back tomorrow. Now if I don’t come back my children will have to starve, and if I do, they gon got to stay home from school. And now is test time. The least that these people could’ve done was inform people of this ridiculous new process,” the lady said.
Single mothers who depend on their ‘child support’, are now calling on the relevant authorities to look into the situation.
“If this continues our children won’t have the Christmas that we want them to have. So all of we here begging those on the throne to help us. We fighting every day to provide food for our children, and all we want right now, is money to give them something to remember. It also unfair that their fathers working to provide for them, and the children can’t get their money in time.

---

---