Two important new partnerships secured over the past year are proving to be highly successful in terms of public safety in the Cape Town CBD.
These partnerships involve the traffic warden programme established in April this year with the City of Cape Town, and The Company’s Garden Ambassador programme established jointly with the Western Cape Government’s Department of Community Safety (DOCS), the department’s Chrysalis Academy and the City of Cape Town (in terms of The Company’s Garden, which the City manages).
Says manager of CCID Safety & Security, Muneeb “Mo” Hendricks: “The traffic warden project has been in operation now for four months, following the initial two-month pilot period and is making a radical difference to peak hour traffic congestion in the Central City.”
With a contract currently scheduled to run until June 2018, the project sees six City traffic wardens, paid for and managed by the CCID, deployed at primary intersections (Strand and Adderley streets as well as Strand and Buitengracht) between 15h00 and 18h30. From 10h00 until 15h00, the patrol becomes a roving unit throughout the Central City, dealing very effectively with non-moving traffic violations also known as “side friction".
Mo explains: “Side friction causes obstructions and can be quite dangerous. It includes parking in loading zones, double parking and generally causing congestion on the road. It can force a three-lane road into becoming a single lane when side friction happens on both sides.
“To date, these wardens have written up an average of well over R1.1 million in fines per month over the past four months. Just their presence on the streets affects behavioural change, and we are seeing CBD motorists responding far more courteously.”
Likewise, says Mo, the presence since last year of the student ambassadors in The Company’s Garden - in their distinctive blue and yellow uniforms - is having an impact on crime in this popular downtown spot.
Known as the Safe Public Spaces Project, the upskilling programme sees approximately 25 students at a time from DOCS’s Chrysalis Academy deployed in The Company’s Garden on three-month rotations. The students are paid a stipend by DOCS, while their day-to-day management is overseen by the CCID, under the guidance of members of its own Public Safety Officer patrol. They also receive training in other aspects vital to their development, such as in financial literacy.
“These students provide a vital, visible security presence but what makes me most proud of them is their personal development,” says Mo. “Around 80% of them to date have managed to secure permanent employment – some even to supervisory level within the programme or to permanent employment with the CCID.”
The project has been deemed to be so successful, that the CCID and DOCS are currently in discussion to expand the ambassadors to other parts of the Central City.
For more about the CCID’s traffic warden project, click here.
Image of Chrysalis Academy student ambassadors assemble to take their instructions for the day. Photo Scott Arendse.
Image of CCID-funded City Traffic wardens, from left to right: Cleoranda Forbes, Craig Bokelmann, Insaaf Adams, Samkelo Swenzi, Esvory Duraan and Sonto Mbunga. Photo Alec van de Rheede.