When residents of Cape Town line up to vote in the local government polls, most of them will do so at schools, halls or community centres that have been turned into temporary voting stations. But for 30 of these venues, the exact opposite will be true: they are being built as polling stations and will be converted into crèches, driver test centres, clinics or community centres after 1 March.

If all goes according to plan, the prefabricated voting stations will be finished by mid-February.

"We didn't want to finish them too soon from a security point of view, since we will have to patrol the area to make sure there is no vandalism or theft between the time the stations are completed and the elections," says Trevor Hollis-Turner, the project co-ordinator. "This way, we only have to secure the stations for two weeks."

The budget for the project is R10-million.

After the elections, the stations will be handed over to the Council bodies that will be responsible for managing them from then on. The polling station at Du Noon, for example, will be given to Health Services to use as a clinic. Six stations in Khayelitsha and Mitchells Plain will be handed over to the Metro Police for use as driver training and testing stations, as those areas lack such facilities.

Another 14 - in places as far apart as Langa, Philippi, Ocean View and Morning Star - will go to Community Development to be used as sports facilities, clinics or crèches. The station in Brackenfell will be used as offices for nature conservation.

Thando Siwisa, the manager of Sub-Council 10, is looking forward to the day Khayelitsha Site B, which falls under his management, gets its station. The plan is to turn the station into a multipurpose community centre.

"At the moment, we only have one centre for tens of thousands of people," says Siwisa. "The new centre will be used for many things. It may, for example, be used as a crèche during the day, a sports youth centre by night, and for weddings, funerals and church services during the weekends. This will be worked out by the ward leaders and the community once it is handed over."

Siwisa says that, in his experience, communities take great pride in these centres and make every effort to ensure they are not vandalised. "The ward leaders are very good at arranging security for the structures and making sure that the community gets free and easy access to the centres.

"I have been in this job since 2002. In that time we have built seven such structures and there has not been one case of vandalism, not one broken window."

The voting-station project is the brainchild of Mayor Nomaindia Mfeketo. When she saw the difficulties experienced by voters forced to cast their votes in tents during the national and provincial elections, she instructed the City Manager and the manager of Special Projects to make sure that all of Cape Town's citizens could vote with dignity - with an eye on providing facilities for under-serviced areas at the same time.

The City of Cape Town will hold on to seven of the polling stations, using them as resource centres where members of the public can find information about Council services, and where municipal officials can conduct meetings and business. These units - which will also have fencing, paths and be surrounded by small landscaped gardens - will be in Mfuleni, Delft, Witsand, Doornbach and Langa; two will be in Philippi.

Source: City of Cape Town