Although opposed by then Prime Minister John Charles Molteno due to financial considerations, a committee was set up to receive designs for a new parliament building.

The committee selected an elaborate design by architect Charles Freeman, and construction began on 12 May 1875, with the then governor of the Cape Colony, Henry Barkly, laying the cornerstone.

Freeman's errors were compounded by the presence of groundwater, and a recalculation of the budget revealed that the actual costs would be many times the original figure that the government had allowed for.

Freeman's plans were altered to exclude seemingly unnecessarily expensive features such as a central dome, statues, parapets and fountains.

[4] Cape Prime Minister Thomas Scanlen, and British Governor Henry Robinson led the opening ceremony in the building, declared finally to be worthy of the country's Legislature.

[6] During the morning of 2 January 2022, a fire broke out in third-floor offices in the parliamentary precinct and spread to the lower and upper houses.

[14] The Times goes on to report, Mr. Mafe was "committed to a psychiatric hospital on Tuesday to determine whether he is fit to stand trial on terrorism and other charges."