The new Parliament building is expected to be completed by the end of September, before MPs return from their summer recess.
Malita Investments, which temporarily owns the site, said the Grand Harbour Regeneration Corporation (GHRC), which is managing the project, had informed them that the building would be finalised by the end of the third quarter at the latest.
The announcement was made on Wednesday on the stock exchange website.
“Nothing has changed. We have always said that we are committed to finishing the building by the end of the summer recess and that is still our intention,” GHRC chairman Stefan Zrinzo Azzopardi told Times of Malta.
Designed by world-renowned architect Renzo Piano, thebuilding forms part of the transformational City Gate project commissioned by the previous government.
Announced in June 2009, the whole project was originally supposed to be finished in July 2013. The government said last July that it would not be finished until at least the second quarter of this year because the former administration did not abide by the original deadlines.
Last November, when Mr Piano was visiting, Speaker Anġlu Farrugia said the building should be complete by June.
“When we talk about the end of the third quarter we are talking about the formal completion of the building,” Dr Zrinzo Azzopardi said, pointing out that City Gate’s open-air theatre started operating before it was officially completed on October 18.
One of the biggest tasks will be transferring all the MPs and staff members from their old offices into the new offices in Parliament
Only when all the finishing work was done and the necessary permits issued could it be deemed officially complete, he added.
“By June we would expect to have reached major milestones. One of the biggest tasks will be transferring all the MPs and staff members from their old offices into the new offices in Parliament,” Dr Zrinzo Azzopardi continued.
There could be slight delays to satisfy MPs’ requirements, as they would be the eventual occupiers of the site.
The City Gate project was originally supposed to cost €80 million. Last year the government said it was at least €6 million over budget.
In its announcement yesterday, Malita, a special investment company set up by the government with private equity investment, said it made a pre-tax profit of €10,027,092 last year, while revenue for the year amounted to €6,738,503.
The company’s revenues were mainly derived from ground rents received from its possession of the Malta International Airport and the Valletta Cruise Port, as well as income related to the lease of the Parliament building and the open-air theatre.