Proposals to relocate Parliament from Cape Town to Pretoria was unnecessary as government should rather focus on reducing the size of cabinet, Cape Town mayor Patricia de Lille said on Friday.

“The issue is not one of whether Parliament moves to Pretoria to cut government wastage. The key issue is that government is too big,” De Lille said.

“National government needs to cut the cabinet, streamline and rationalise Parliament in order to save costs to the taxpayer and work more efficiently,” she said.

Delivering his state-of-the-nation address in Parliament on Thursday, President Jacob Zuma said the issue of having two capitals – Pretoria, as the executive capital, and Cape Town, as the legislative capital – needed to be discussed soon.

“The executive has looked into this matter and the cost is too big … because it means, particularly the executive, [that] we must have two houses – one in Pretoria, one in Cape Town,” Zuma said.

Zuma insisted that relocating Parliament would reduce the administrative costs.