The government will buy the British High Commission building in the parliamentary precincts for about R6-million this year, Public Works Minister Stella Sigcau said on Tuesday.
Briefing reporters in Cape Town, she said negotiations were at quite an advanced stage and the whole transaction should be finalised within the next six months.
The public works department has previously said it wanted the building to help alleviate the problem of lack of space in Parliament.
In a briefing document to political party chief whips dated February 17, Secretary to Parliament Sindiso Mfenyana said the British High Commission and the SA Revenue Building next to Parliament ”were part of a bigger plan that relates to the Media
Diversity and Development Agency Act”.
He did not elaborate.
The high commission building — opposite the National Assembly and meters away from President Thabo Mbeki’s Tuynhuys office — was bought by the British High Commission in 1937.
The British managed to resist attempts by South Africa’s apartheid regime to relocate the high commission in the 1980s and early 1990s, but are now willing to move.
The commission’s commercial, consular and management sections are already housed in Cape Town’s Southern Life building, which is convenient for public access.
No other diplomatic mission has offices in the parliamentary precincts. – Sapa