THE government is steaming ahead with work on relocating Parliament to Pretoria, President Jacob Zuma revealed yesterday, while the legislature itself has yet to discuss the matter.
Speaking during question time in the National Council of Provinces (NCOP), Zuma said an interdepartmental task team had been set up to study various aspects of the proposed move, which he revived during his State of the Nation address this year.
The issue has been mooted since the presidency of Nelson Mandela and a number of studies done on the costs and benefits, but no decisions have been taken.
Zuma stressed it was not for the executive to decide as it was “within the ambit of Parliament”. He said the costs of moving between two capitals were “huge” and the preliminary analysis “continues to point to the same conclusions” as studies done in 1995, 1997 and 2011.
“These indicated that in the long term, the cost to relocate the legislative authority from Cape Town to Pretoria will be significantly less than maintaining the status quo,” Zuma said.
He said the task team included: the Treasury, looking at costs; the Justice Department, looking at legislative requirements; the Department of Public Service and Administration, looking at administrative and human capital implications; the Transport Department, looking at logistics; the SAPS, looking at safety and security, and the Department of Labour, which was looking at human resources.
The Department of Public Works was also looking at the costs of building a new parliamentary precinct in Pretoria, compared to upgrading the existing precinct to meet space requirements.
Negative impacts for Cape Town could include loss of income and jobs.