Sierra Leone News: Legal Aid Board Facilitates Payments of Child Maintenance Support

By Sallieu Kanu

The Rokel Commercial Bank desk office in the Legal Aid Board head office has on October 22 opened the hundredth Child Maintenance Account. The desk office was opened on August 15.

It would be recalled that the first account was opened at the Siaka Stevens Street branch of the Rokel Commercial Bank in August.

The Executive Director of the Board, Ms. Fatmata Claire Carlton-Hanciles and the Human Resource Manager Ms. Audrey Williams witnessed the opening of the account. Ms. Carlton-Hanciles seized the opportunity to call on fathers to be responsible by not delaying the payment of child maintenance money.

Ms. Carlton-Hanciles said, “We are under a lot of pressure when mothers come to collect maintenance monies from the bank after a week or more in the following month, and find out nothing has been paid into their accounts.”

Ms. Carlton-Hanciles concedes that while the Board has found a way around irresponsible parents who flout settlements reached at mediation, it is still struggling to deal with fathers who delay payment of maintenance money.