The Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) has said any funds allocated for repairs to what appeared to be "irreversible damage" to the National Assembly building on Sunday, should be spent on relocating parliament to Tshwane instead.

While the party commended Cape Town's firefighters for extinguishing the blaze, it said it had long "agitated" for parliament to be relocated to Gauteng for political and cost-related reasons.

The EFF has maintained the seat of SA's legislative affairs in Cape Town was the result of a deal brokered between "British and Afrikaner settlers" at the end of the Anglo-Boer War and excluded Africans.

"To maintain this colonial pact of how we organise our society is nothing but a betrayal of African people and a reaffirmation that white-racist spatial and political planning still over-determines our lives in this country," EFF spokesperson Vuyani Pambo said.

The party said maintaining the legislature in Cape Town was a waste of tax-payers' money as it resulted n unnecessary expenditure for travel and accommodation for parliamentarians and cabinet members.

Relocating parliament to Gauteng would allow government work to be synchronised and cut all ties to SA's former colonial framework, the party said.

"The EFF therefore calls for any money which would be set aside for repairs of what seems like irreversible damage, unless there is large-scale construction, to be used to relocate Parliament to Tshwane where the Union Buildings reside," it added.

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