Western Cape Premier Helen Zille has handed the Presidency and the cooperative governance and traditional affairs ministry a list of national laws holding up service delivery in provincial government.

This followed a request President Jacob Zuma made to the Western Cape provincial government on August 13 at a meeting in Pretoria, she said in a statement on Tuesday.

The list of laws affecting provincial government was based on inputs from each of the Western Cape's departments.

There were over 70 suggested amendments in total. These included calls for national planning legislation to be simplified so as to avoid excessive delays to crucial infrastructure projects like housing, basic services and roads.

In some cases up to four different laws required four different public participation processes for one project, creating huge delays to delivery, Zille said.

"We are also calling for greater legislative clarity on the respective roles and responsibilities of national, provincial and local government spheres, as set out in Schedules 4 and 5 of the Constitution."

The current situation left uncertainty which affected funding allocations and implementation, and often left local or provincial governments with unfunded mandates.

"We have recommended that the Constitutional Court be asked to drive and control this process.

"We have also raised the question of rights and responsibilities around ports, controlled by Transnet, but not always run in a manner that benefits regional economies and communities.

"And we have put forward a range of other proposals to close loopholes that allow for corruption and maladministration.

"Last month we also submitted a list of national laws negatively affecting Municipalities, based on inputs given to the local government MEC from a number of municipalities in the Western Cape, following a formal request made by the MEC to all 30 municipalities in the province."

The list contains over a dozen suggested amendments, as well as two key issues of implementation that needed to be addressed.

The first called for the establishment of special purpose magistrates courts to ensure proper enforcement of municipal legislation and by-laws, especially in larger municipalities.

The second issue of implementation called for steps to address the general complexity of laws affecting municipalities.

With the introduction of the Municipal Systems Act, Municipal Structures Act, the Municipal Financial Management Act, and various other pieces of national legislation over the past ten years, the system of laws relating to municipalities had become a mess of red tape.

"I would like to thank the President for agreeing to follow up on these critically important submissions," Zille said.