A bomb threat, which caused Parliament to shut down on Monday afternoon, was a hoax, police said.
Superintendent Vish Naidoo said the threats were made at about 1.50pm and Parliament was immediately evacuated.
”The police used sniffer dogs to search the premises, but nothing was found,” Naidoo said.
”Hoax calls are offences, so there will be a criminal investigation.”
Earlier in the day, a police officer said that the Goodwood police station had received two phone calls warning of an explosive device within the parliamentary complex.
The disruption to Parliament was minimal as MPs were currently away in their constituencies.
Parliamentary staff, Members of Parliament and parliamentary media poured out of the parliamentary buildings after the scare.
Security at Parliament had been alerted immediately, and a search of the complex put under way.
Police routinely asked people — who gathered in Parliament Street which cuts through the parliamentary complex — if they had seen suspicious parcels.
Those evacuated were asked to wait outside of the buildings for about 15 minutes.
However, members of the parliamentary media — who are congregated in the former Barclays Bank building in the parliamentary grounds — were not all told to evacuate.
Some carried on working unaware of developments while others were herded outside.
Just one parliamentary committee met on Monday morning — the joint ad hoc committee on corporate governance — so there are few Members of Parliament in the complex at present.
The two houses of Parliament gather again next week to consider changes to cross-border legislation.
Recently two power outages affected Parliament — the second disrupting sittings of the National Assembly and National Council of Provinces. On both occasions parliamentary workers waited outside the building until power was restored. – I-Net Bridge, Sapa