September 16, 2004

Tucked away in an industrial area, between Johannesburg and Pretoria, a sprawling modern conference centre, which is named after an Australian-born baker, is about to become home to the Pan-African Parliament.

Gallagher Estate is a complex of modern buildings with posh interiors of winged-back chairs, glass doors, Italian marble and rosewood wall panels.

An auditorium, where the results of SA's historic 1994 multi-racial elections were announced, has been transformed into the chamber where 265 members of parliament from Algiers to Antananarivo will take their seats.

For the next year, PAP will hold its sessions there before moving to a new building, being built at Gallagher Estate to house the continental legislature until 2009.

The SA government has yet to find a permanent home for PAP but the conference centre, with its rose garden and fish pond, will do nicely for now.

The estate once belonged to Harold Gallagher, a baker and philanthropist, who donated the property to Johannesburg for a child welfare centre. It was later sold to a developer, who built the conference centre, which opened in 1993 There is no on-site accommodation for members of parliament - five from each of the 53 countries.

The chamber features rows of desks for the MPs facing the speaker's chair, flanked by the flags of Africa's 53 countries. The parliament is expected to sit all-day Monday to Thursday and wrap up at noon on Fridays to allow Muslim members to attend mosque.

An army of interpreters will be on hand to ensure that the debates can be understood in Arabic, English, French, Portuguese and Swahili.