Developer in Eur3.6 million Yana Mintoff land deal appointed head of security for Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Malta next year
Kurt Cini, a 33-year-old real estate developer whose family company, Steel Structures Ltd, is a major industry player in Malta, has been appointed Head of Security for the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) to be held in Malta next year.
John Rizzo, then Commissioner of Police, was Head of Security when the CHOGM meeting was held in Malta in 2005. He worked with the Armed Forces brigadier and the head of the Security Service.
Cini is also a director of and shareholder in (through a company called Quintus) GINWI Ltd, a real estate development operation in which the other directors/shareholders are members of Cini’s family and brothers Charles and Paul Polidano.
In 2012 this website had reported on a Eur3.6 million land deal involving GINWI Ltd and Dom Mintoff’s daughters, Yana Mintoff Bland and Anne McKenna.
In 2009, Mintoff Bland and McKenna sold a parcel of land in the ‘south’ of Malta for Eur3.6 million to GINWI. They had bought the land, then in an agricultural zone, for just Lm4,000 (Eur9,320) in 1996, from Anthony Cassar de Sain, who had been refused a development permit.
The zoning had since been redrawn, making development possible.
In 2008, a year before the contract of sale was signed, GINWI Ltd had applied for a full development permit to construct flats, penthouses and garages on the land, which was at that point still owned by Yana Mintoff and her sister.
Yesterday I spoke to Kurt Cini and asked him what experience he has in security matters at the level required for a major convention of heads of state and of government, or in security in general, and why he felt able to accept the appointment.
I did not think it appropriate to ask him why he had been selected for the job, as that is a question for the government/those who selected him, including CHOGM head Phyllis Muscat, whose very successful track record is entirely in the commercial sector, importing and distributing beauty products.
Cini was not very forthcoming, but responded that he thinks he has the experience required because he has worked in “logistics” for several years.
“I will not be working in security as such. This is a matter of logistics,” he told me.
I asked him what role he will be playing, given that the security operation for a heads of government/heads of state convention requires the full involvement of the army, the police and many of the civil authorities.
His response was: “That’s it. I will be involved in the logistics of all that.”
Not that this is particularly relevant, but it is an interesting detail. Kurt Cini and Simone Cini, who has been a big part of the Labour Party’s television station for years, are first cousins. Their fathers are brothers.
Kurt Cini
GINWI Ltd
Quintus Ltd
14 Comments Comment
Leave a Comment
If Kurt Cini is only responsible for logistics, then he should drop the security bit from his title.
As designated head of security for a major international gathering involving the head of the Commonwealth, heads of state, heads of government, and their spouses and accompanying persons, he is responsible for coordinating all security operations.
That includes the police, the secret service, the AFM, the SAG, and the personal security detail of all participants. He is also responsible for the operational interface with diplomatic representation of all the countries involved.
As head of security, he needs to know what is necessary and then ensure that it’s done, even if it means ensuring that someone else does it, e.g., the police. That involves a whole lot more than coordinating billboad delivery trucks, or managing a building site.
The fact that Cini didn’t comment about the security bit shows he doesn’t know in what he’s now up to his neck.
If I were Rajapaksa, I’d be worried.
One starts off with a furrowed brow because of mismatching skill sets and appointments, but as one reads on and gets to the eureka moment one again sees how the country has gone to the dogs or rather the forth floor.
And all this while the previously indignant, chest beating, ‘voices of the people’ and ‘lovers of Malta’ look away in cowardly silence. Where is their air time now, where are their columns?
Kurt Cini is/was a law student.
[Daphne – Isn’t everybody nowadays?]
The role of head of security, especially in a case like this, should be borne by a highly experienced person specifically in security matters.
Since the activity in question calls for national security, the role should also be borne by a person of authority at national level. The commissioner of police or the brigadier are probably the most suitable to fill this role.
If a person with experience in logistics is required, the role for that person should be strictly a consultative one especially if this person does not have high level security clearance.
U ijja, mhux xorta.
Not only is he a first cousin to Simon Cini – but check the connection with Keith ‘Kasco’ Schembri and you’ll see that he really belongs to the Taghna Lkoll family.
On another note, talk of clutching at straws!
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20140520/ep-elections/fknk-endorses-joseph-cuschieri.519808
I welcome this appointment.
The Commisioner and the entire police force will be too busy with the catering to be involved with security.
Maybe the Boy Scouts and the Girl Guides can be asked to give a helping hand.
Malta has been turned overnight into an amateurs’ paradise.
The result is glaringly obvious.
So this guy thinks that handling 53 head of governments and their entourage is a “matter of logistics”.
Ghadu lanqas jaf x’se jolqtu.
Il-marelli x’kumbinazzjoni. Donnhom tal-familja biss huma kompetenti ghax-xoghol taht dan il-gvern.
Kurt Cini’s grandfather Toni used to run an engineering factory and one day his employees decided to join the GWU when I was assistant secretary to Lorry Sant.
At our first meeting Mr Cini tried to bully me by loud talking and using threatening words. At the time there were no mobiles, and whilst he was shouting I asked him whether I could make a phone call to my mother since she was ill.
He obliged and I phoned Lorry and informed him what was going on. On hearing Lorry shouting at the other end of the line, Toni took the receiver from my hand and assured him that there was a slight misunderstanding, and that there was no need for him to come over.
At that time I was appointed, by Prime Minister Mintoff, director of Marsa Water Fittings, as was a Mr Cini whose first name I forget, and who probably was/is Kurt’s father or uncle.
This Mr Cini was at the time an employee of the Malta Developement Corporation, and if I am not mistaken he was also a board member of that corporation. Had it not been for Mr. Maurice Petrocchino, chairman of the MDC, and Mr Victor Galea, a colleague of Mr Cini who was also on the Board of Marsa Water Fittings, this factory would have closed much earlier than it did.
Let’s keep in all in the family.
He may be a millionaire, but those jacket sleeves have been shortened abominably. Probably by the cheapest tailor in town.
So he is going to get paid to oversee that drivers pick up the guests and carry them to their meetings then see to it that they do not park on yellow lines. I too worked in logistics but I was also head of Security which I find to be far far afield from logistics and the movement, storage and delivery of goods and wares.
Kurt Cini’s father and Simone Cini’s father are brothers and rabid Mintoffiani to the core.