Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley says the Red House ren­o­va­tion is ex­pect­ed to be com­plet­ed by year’s end.

He said the cost so far on the project is $244 mil­lion, with a to­tal of $408 mil­lion com­mit­ted to the project. He said ap­prox­i­mate­ly $200 mil­lion has al­so been saved by break­ing up the work in­to 17 pack­ages done by con­trac­tors.

Paint­ing of some ex­ter­nal parts of the build­ing—dark red—start­ed in re­cent months. A walkover, join­ing the struc­ture’s west side with the Ca­bil­do Cham­bers build­ing op­po­site, is now be­ing built. Ca­bil­do Cham­bers for­mer­ly housed the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al’s of­fice and will now be the com­pan­ion build­ing to the Red House, where of­fices for Par­lia­ment staff and oth­er of­fices will be lo­cat­ed.

Row­ley said the EBC re­port on Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment will be laid in Par­lia­ment short­ly af­ter the EBC does amend­ments and sends the re­port back to the Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Min­istry.