The Big Read: Gravy train's Voyager miles

The spotlight fell on the scenic city of Cape Town once again last night as millions of South Africans took time off from the 2014 soccer World Cup to listen to President Jacob Zuma deliver his first State of the Nation address of his new term.

As has been the case for decades, there was much pomp and ceremony as the military and other organs of state performed all the rituals that have become associated with the opening of parliament. The MPs came to the party too, once again staging the mother of all outrageous red carpet fashion shows moments before Zuma spoke.

After the speech, many of our public representatives; senior civil servants; business executives and their sidekicks spent the night painting Ikapa Lodumo (Cape Town) red. As you read this, a few of them would still be trying to recover from a blinding hangover.

On the whole, the opening of parliament is party time for our politicos. Ministers fly down with entourages of up to 16 people each; all of whom are transported; accommodated and fed by the state. The rich throw private parties.

At least this time round, parliament did not throw an expensive dinner party at taxpayers' expense. This, parliamentary officials say, is the National Assembly's own contribution to the austerity measures all are asked to take in these tough economic times.

But if we are to be serious about austerity, we should revive a more fundamental debate about the viability and affordability of having two capitals: Cape Town and Pretoria.

While one understands the historical factors that led to Pretoria becoming the administrative capital and Cape Town the legislative capital, as well as the political sensitivities that made the founders of a new and democratic republic not wish to change this back in 1994, the 20th anniversary of our nationhood seems a perfect time to review such decisions.

Many of the scandals around the wasting of our resource s that made headlines over the past decade or so, had to do with the fact that we have separated the seat of legislative power from that of the executive.

If both were located in the same city or province, we probably would not have had the scale of abuse of public resources that we witnessed during Travelgate.

Cabinet ministers and their deputies would not have to each buy two sets of cars - one for Cape Town and the other for Pretoria - at our expense. Nor would each have to be given a house for each city, a system some further abuse by staying at obscenely expensive hotels such as the One & Only and Mount Nelson while their Cape Town homes are being refurbished by the extremely slow Public Works Department.

Senior public servants have to travel between the two cities almost on a weekly basis as they shuffle between running their departments in Pretoria and accounting to lawmakers in Cape Town.

This, no doubt, does wonders for their Voyager miles, but at what cost to the fiscus?

Like most other important issues in the country, the debate over whether we can afford two capital cities has often died before it has begun - due mainly to it being too emotive and divisive.

The campaign to have parliament moved to Pretoria was met with fierce opposition in the late 1990s and calls by some parties to have the current houses of parliament transplanted into the Pan African Parliament in 2009 were also defeated.

Mostly the debate has been hindered by the short-sightedness of our politicians who, instead of recognising the debate for what it is, see it as an attempt to rob the opposition-controlled Cape Town of its status as the legislative capital or - within sections of the ruling party - as a way of punishing the city and the province for voting differently from the national norm.

There were hopes that the issue would be resolved when it was announced that then deputy president Kgalema Motlanthe had been appointed to investigate the matter. Nothing seemed to come of that though, and Motlanthe has now retired.

But the country seriously needs to resolve the issue as a matter of urgency if the cost-cutting measures that are being promised are to be taken seriously.

If Cape Town is the most suitable as a seat of both government and the National Assembly, so be it. If it is Pretoria, let it be done. And if it would be better to find a totally new capital, let that be.

What we cannot do is continue with the costly status quo that makes scarce public resources vulnerable to waste and abuse by elected public representatives and state employees.