DISTRIBUTED BY VERITAS TRUST Tel: [263] [4] 794478 Fax & Messages [263] [4] 793592 E-mail: veritas@mango.zw 18 Veritas makes every effort to ensure the provision of reliable information, but cannot take legal responsibility for information supplied. Judgment No. SC 37/18 Civil Appeal No. SC 433/16 [38] It follows from the aforegoing that the best interests of a child should always be paramount in the making of any determination that affects them in their well-being. A court is therefore under obligation to apply its mind directly to what is in the best interests of a child in any given case. [39] The suggestion that, as at 2016, the sum of $200 per month was sufficient to meet the growing needs of two teenage girls, one born in 2000 and the other in 2001, flies in the face of logic. I say this because the respondent, in his opposing papers, appropriated the sum of $350 from his income just for his food, and a further $200 towards electricity, $150 for entertainment, $340 for the gardener and maid. The complaint by the appellant before the court a quo was that the amounts paid by the respondent are not just for food, but also for electricity and the general upkeep of her and two growing girls. [40] In my view, whilst the question whether the respondent should maintain the appellant beyond the period the children attain the age of eighteen is a moot one, there can be little doubt that, as at the date of the hearing of the application, there was urgent need for the sum of $100 awarded to the appellant in respect of each child to be varied upwards. The only question before the court, after hearing evidence, should have been the means of the respondent and, as a corollary, the amount of maintenance to be paid by him. It was, therefore, a clear misdirection on the part of the court a quo not to hear evidence in this regard or at the very least refer the matter to trial.