The Democratic Alliance (DA) on Wednesday served Parliament with a letter of demand, arguing that it has had enough time to find an alternative venue for the institution during the year.

DA Chief Whip Siviwe Gwarube pointed out that it had been over a year since the fire at the Parliamentary complex and little to no work had been done to investigate the cause of the fire or start the process of rebuilding the precinct. 

Parliament has been using the Cape Town City Hall owing to the extensive damage to key offices, chambers and meeting rooms in the National Assembly and Old Assembly buildings.

She went on to say that the process had been characterised by lethargy and reluctance to recognise that South Africa was poorer for not having a fully functioning national legislature.

“More pressingly, the National Assembly has been relegated to convening in the Good Hope Chamber, a venue which accommodates 30% of its total members. The proceedings are done in a hybrid fashion, a measure we have long argued is ineffective for the work of Parliament in the long run. If the timelines that Public Works and Infrastructure has presented are true, it means this will be the arrangement for the next four years,” said the DA.

Gwarube argued that the stop-gap measure of hiring the City Hall on an ad-hoc basis was costly and unsustainable.

This year alone, Parliament is budgeting R8-million to host the State of the Nation Address on Thursday, the debates that follow and the Budget Speech later this month.

She highlighted that the cost drivers of this bill were the hiring of ICT equipment each time the institution was meant to hold in-person or joint sittings of the two Houses, adding that this could easily be avoided by having had an alternative venue in which Parliament could procure its own ICT equipment for use over the next several years.

“In addition, it is our contention that Parliament is now firmly in contravention of the Constitution. The institution’s core mandate is to hold the executive to account and this has not been happening adequately due to the challenges of connection in a country with rolling blackouts. Some members of the executive are only too happy to take advantage of this tardy manner of doing business,” the party said.