Herman Grech
Police waiting for overtime
Government says dues soon settled
Police officers are fuming because they have not yet been paid for overtime carried out during last March's general election and the July public transport strike.
Furthermore, hundreds of the force's 1,400 staff still have to be paid for services rendered to third parties, some of which date back a year, according to police sources.
District police and officers working in the drug squad are also owed thousands of euros due to the number of extra events they have worked. One police officer, who preferred to remain anonymous, said: "I'm owed hundreds of euros for overtime... I was told that for election duties I would be paid by the end of December at the latest, which makes it nine months late. I have no idea when I will be paid for the transport strike duties."
Another policeman, working for a different section, said several officers were reaching the end of their tether.
"The frustrating thing is that it's always a waiting game - we're never told when we're going to be paid. Nearly all the force was involved in the transport strike and nobody has yet been compensated. Now we keep hearing that another strike is in the offing and this is causing a lot of unrest among the police."
Banks and similar institutions are often asked to pay the police's fees beforehand and the officers are upset that the same policy does not apply to other organisations, one policeman said.
The St Julian's police station, for example, refuses to send officers on extra duty unless their fee is settled beforehand, he said. To add to the frustration, police who spoke to The Sunday Times said payments settled by third parties were sometimes delayed at administrative level meaning it took weeks for overtime to be reflected in their pay cheques.
A spokesman for the Home Affairs Ministry said the government is aware that the sums due from third parties are not always paid to the police corps on time. However, he insisted that the payments for such duties were processed at once.
The ministry also said that election overtime dues should be settled by next month and that the payment for overtime performed during the transport strike is "currently being processed".
"In the case of overtime performed during the general election, the ministry is informed that the amounts required have now been transferred and the overtime payments will be made with the salary payment due after the upcoming one."
The budget allocated for police overtime is not always enough to cover one-off or exceptional events, the spokesman said.
Such events are therefore paid through extra amounts that are transferred from the Treasury or the entities responsible for such events.
The Malta Football Association was one of the culprits for late payments according to the police sources, though the MFA settled its dues with the police administration recently.
Questions sent to the police remained unanswered.
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Michael Jones
Oct 26th 2008, 22:52
I like how some people are surprised, this is hardly news. Ask any officer if this kind of thing happened in the past.
The police are seriously underfunded. The even more sad thing is that because of the lack of 'investment' the police force have to run the show with decrepit inefficiency at the cost of the tax payer. Moreover, instead of helping the police man the politician has chosen to further stretch his abilities with the burden of catering for thousands of illegal excuse me irregular immigrants.
Law, order and justice are fundamental to society, but these are just few more crucial aspects of our lives from many that the Government continues to ignore.
ray borg
Oct 26th 2008, 13:55
Maybe they treat police officers like this due to the fact that no union can help them. I heard from several police officers complaining about there overtime while delivering voting documents and the long hours they worked during the general elections. nobody knows about when they are going to get paid, till they get paid. with words anybody can say what he wants, like when they were promised that money was available for the overtime in the general elections time. Maybe someone would have said that money would be available in a year's time.
Phil Press
Oct 26th 2008, 12:15
We have had the health workers and now the police awaiting payments. Who can be next !. If you cannot pay vital services, well the mind boggles.
Muscat Peter
Oct 26th 2008, 11:23
Minister after minister for the police are known never to be in a hurry even when the opposition agrees with their initiatives. Finally the police will be paid for overtime - unless it's another promise like the voluntary commitment in the immigration pact! Dr José Herrera recently agreed with CMB's promise of re-organisation of the Court experts remuneration. This is overdue. There is a huge difference between the remuneration of experts while they are all experts and this makes the Courts find it difficult to find some experts who accept Court work. Police and Court work become efficient if the minister works efficiently.
D. A . Agius
Oct 26th 2008, 10:29
And that's just the tip of the iceberg.
If someone studies a bit of the history of the police force, various re-organisations and studies were carried out of how the force works when Malta was still a colony. Since self-government, almost none of these were carried out.
That's what is needed. A whole review of how Law Enforcement works in Malta, with an open mind and involvement of all stakeholders and professionals. Our Police Force still functions in some respects like it used to be under colonial rule! New equipment and uniforms have not changed the basic administrative deficiencies. Primarily, contact with the public is still something which leaves very much to be desired. Secondarily, as long as the top administration still thinks to be omnipotent as some members seem to think they are, the Police Force will never be restructed nor improved decently.
D. A . Agius
Oct 26th 2008, 10:15
Add to it that the Police Board, which is set up by law to oversee such issues, although acknowledging the receipt of my complaints three times, has not to my knowledge done anything to look into this matter.
In my opinion, the Police Administration is at best arrogant and incompetent. I can give a lot of examples from my personal experience. A few things:
- Having spent over 7 years in the police and having been trained abroad on numerous times, not one single official of the administration bothered to ask me why I was resigning.
- I have seen cases where suspected child abusers although identified, were not arrested nor interrogated until another indirect victim attempted suicide six months later.
- Numerous reports in connection with conferences or trainif attended abroad were never evaluated and just left lying in the files
- The Police website is still what was put up hastily in 2003. As a member of the team that was working on it, recommendations to improve it by providing information that the public may use (contact information, basic information as to how the police operate, basic crime awareness information, and lots of others) were ignored.
D. A . Agius
Oct 26th 2008, 10:06
"Questions sent to the police remained unanswered."
Of course, do they bother ever responding?
I have an issue of my own. I am an ex-Police Sergeant. My last four years in the Police were spent in the Cyber Crime Unit. Due to the nature of our job and the lack of personnel (two police sergeants and one part-time Inspector until June 2007), being available on-call was something that the Police Force found very useful.
This was never compensated as should be according to the Public Service Management code. I submitted a request for this to be rectified in January 2007 (when i was still a member). In June 2007 I resigned from the force. In November 2007 I sent an email to the office of the Commissioner or Police, a reminder by registered post in December 2007, letter from a lawyer in February 2008, reminder from the lawyer in May 2008. NO Reply, not even an acknowledgement! In July 2008, a Maltese newspaper publishes a snippet on my issue. Ten days later a hasty reply is issued, stating that the on-call service was never official and thus will not be compensated. 19 months.
Franco Farrugia
Oct 26th 2008, 10:02
Disgusting. This is no way to treat the Police Force.
Noel Cutajar
Oct 26th 2008, 09:53
It is not only overtime that they are waiting for...they need better conditions such as life insurance, road worthy vehicles, better working environment, proper training, and most of all respect for what they do from their seniors.