The African National Congress in the Western Cape said Premier Helen Zille was breaching protocol by delivering her provincial speech before the president's State of the Nation address.

President Jacob Zuma's address in Parliament is scheduled for next week Wednesday while the premier will deliver her speech this Friday in the legislature.

The date for the provincial address was initially scheduled after the presidential speech was penciled in but the ANC changed the date and now claims the Democratic Alliance was trying to upstage Zuma.

"We have timed it as 29th of May because that was originally going to fall after the president's speech now the National Assembly has moved it which puts the premier's speech ahead of the president's speech," said Zille's spokesperson Robert McDonald.

ANC provincial spokesperson Garth Strachan said the change of dates was not a valid excuse on the DA's part.

"It would not be the first time that the date for the opening of the national Parliament and the State of the Nation is changed by a few days so I don't think that it is an adequate excuse," said Strachan.