President Jacob Zuma on Tuesday said while only Parliament could decide whether it should relocate to Pretoria, government would continue persuading the legislature to move from Cape Town.

“The seat of the legislature is a call for Parliament to make. However, the executive will continue to provide support and information to persuade Parliament to consider the big expenditure item of maintaining two capitals,” Zuma said during his question-and-answer session in the National Council of Provinces.

Zuma said an inter-departmental task team had been put together to look at the cost implications, as well as the logistical and administrative effect moving the legislature would have.

“The preliminary analysis continues to point to the same conclusions derived from previous studies in 1995, 1997 and 2011. These indicated that in the long term the cost to relocate the legislature from Cape Town to Pretoria will be significantly less than maintaining the status quo,” he said.

“The negative impact includes the potential loss of income for the City of Cape Town and potential job losses in the finance and services sectors in providing services to Parliament.”

The President acknowledged it would be costly to build a new Parliamentary precinct, but said that in the long run it would save government millions in transport and housing costs.

“The cost is huge. If, for example, you look at each and every executive member has to have two houses, two cars…because we have two capitals. It is also time consuming. The executive has to move up and down.”