In a rare instance of agreement, three opposition parties and the ANC joined together on Thursday to oppose a private member’s bill proposed by EFF leader Julius Malema to move parliament from Cape Town to Tshwane.
Malema’s main argument was that because Tshwane was more accessible to the majority of the population than Cape Town, its relocation there would enhance democracy and accountability.
Malema said Cape Town was the farthest city from other provinces making it inaccessible to the majority of the population and only accessible to elites who had the resources to travel there. MPs also had to spend a significant amount of time travelling to and from the city.
“Parliament and the government currently spend a significant amount of money on travel and housing for members of parliament, the executive, the government and state officials in order to maintain a separate administrative and legislative capital in two cities,” the memorandum to the bill stated.
It was preferable, the memorandum said, to have the administrative capital and the national legislature in the same city. This would also alleviate the financial burden on the fiscus.
However, DA MP Annelie Lotriet said the proposal to relocate parliament to Cape Town was made at the wrong time, for the wrong reasons. A comprehensive study was required before such a proposal could be considered as well as current costing and future projections. Relocation would require the construction of a new parliamentary precinct and accommodation for MPs. Another consideration was the fate of parliamentary staff and their families.
Parliament was under an obligation to restore the parliamentary buildings damaged in last year’s fire as it was a national heritage site. This would mean that two parliaments would have to be built at double the cost. “This makes no financial sense,” Lotriet said, especially given SA’s desperate economic state. “Relocating parliament is not what the country needs now,” she said.
IFP MP Narend Singh noted that the relocation of parliament had been under discussion for a number of years. The need to restore the damaged parliamentary buildings — at an estimated cost of between R2bn and R3bn — put paid to any debate on relocation in the short to medium term. “We simply cannot afford to relocate at this time,” Singh said. Money could be better spent on meeting social needs, he said.
FF+ leader Pieter Groenewald also focused on the costs of such a move and said wherever parliament was situated it would be necessary for some MPs to travel there.
ANC MP Mankwana Papo said relocating parliament was not a priority for the country and the ANC did not support it.
A study by Pamoja Asset Management commissioned by parliament in 2018 and released last year estimated that it would cost R8.4bn over five years to build a new parliamentary complex in Pretoria and relocate the legislature’s more than 1,000 employees from Cape Town, but this would offset the cost of regular renovations and maintenance of the current precinct, which came in at R4.2bn over four years.
The study also found that the cost of shuttling ministers and their support staff between the two cities would be cut by R183m a year.
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