The Gov­ern­ment is ex­cit­ed to move back to the icon­ic Red House build­ing next Fri­day for its gala cer­e­mo­ni­al open­ing.

Leader of Gov­ern­ment Busi­ness Camille Robin­son-Reg­is said mem­bers of the Gov­ern­ment were more than ea­ger to re­turn to the Red House to have si­mul­ta­ne­ous sit­tings of the Low­er and Up­per Hous­es to de­bate bills to make laws and ac­count to the pop­u­la­tion about its poli­cies, spend­ing and ac­tions.

“It’s go­ing to be a grand open­ing. We are start­ing at 10.30 am,” Robin­son-Reg­is gushed with en­thu­si­asm dur­ing a tele­phone in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day.

Jan­u­ary 20 was bandied as the open­ing date for the Red House but Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert at Thurs­day’s post Cab­i­net me­dia brief­ing an­nounced that next Fri­day (Jan­u­ary 24) would be its of­fi­cial open­ing.

The guest list will in­clude all 41 Mem­bers of Par­lia­ment, com­pris­ing Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley and Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar.

Pres­i­dent Paula-Mae Weekes will al­so be in at­ten­dance.

Sen­a­tors, dig­ni­taries and spe­cial­ly in­vit­ed guests will al­so in­clude the line-up.

Up to yes­ter­day, scores of work­men were busy putting the fi­nal touch­es out­side the his­toric struc­ture which was re­stored at $441 mil­lion.

The hedg­ing that once lined the perime­ter of the Red House has been re­placed with a fan­cy wrought iron fenc­ing.

A walkover was al­so con­struct­ed from Ca­bil­do Build­ing to the Red House.

A crew was al­so seen do­ing land­scap­ing on the grounds on St Vin­cent Street side and rub­ble be­ing cart­ed away in wheel­bar­rows from the con­struc­tion site.

“It’s not a sit­ting of Par­lia­ment,” Robin­son-Reg­is re­vealed.

In 2011, Par­lia­ment re­lo­cat­ed from the Red House to Tow­er D of the In­ter­na­tion­al Wa­ter­front Cen­tre, Port-of-Spain, to re­store the cen­tu­ry-old build­ing which had been in ru­ins.

Robin­son-Reg­is said they would have to do a new procla­ma­tion in­di­cat­ing that the Red House will be the place where the Fifth Ses­sion of the 11th Par­lia­ment will con­tin­ue.

“So that would be part of it (agen­da) and we will be hav­ing an ad­dress by her Ex­cel­len­cy. Then there would be the grand open­ing fol­lowed by a walk­through and serv­ing of light re­fresh­ments.”

“We are very ex­cit­ed about re­turn­ing to the Red House and so we are look­ing for­ward to Fri­day. To me, it looks even larg­er than it was be­fore; even more im­pres­sive than it ever was,” she gushed.

Robin­son-Reg­is said she was privy to a re­cent tour in­side the build­ing and gave her stamp of ap­proval of the work done by the con­trac­tors.

She cred­it­ed the Ur­ban De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion of T&T (Ude­cott) for man­ag­ing the restora­tion project af­ter work had been in abeyance for years.

“They have done re­al­ly well. The Red House is very sig­nif­i­cant to the peo­ple of T&T. It is very sig­nif­i­cant that we are re­turn­ing to the Par­lia­ment. What is very note­wor­thy is that both cham­bers have been done so it means that the work of the Par­lia­ment can pro­ceed even more quick­ly.”

She said there will be si­mul­ta­ne­ous sit­tings in the Up­per and Low­er Hous­es.

“We will be able to do that now. It means that the Sen­ate could be deal­ing with one bill and the House could be deal­ing with an­oth­er and so the work of the Par­lia­ment could be ex­pe­dit­ed.”

One fea­ture of the Red House that will re­turn, Robin­son-Reg­is said is the eter­nal flame which was cre­at­ed af­ter the 1990 coup at­tempt to com­mem­o­rate the lives lost in that in­sur­gency and to sym­bol­ise the need to be ever vig­i­lant in the pro­tec­tion of the coun­try’s democ­ra­cy.

“Yes, but it would be some­what dif­fer­ent from what was there pre­vi­ous­ly.”