Compensation in the long-running police overtime dispute may be a step closer as the government is expected to table an offer in the coming weeks, Home Affairs Minister Carmelo Abela has confirmed.

While remaining tight-lipped on the exact amount on offer, the minister excluded this would be in the region of €50 million, which is the estimated total payment due to the aggrieved officers for all the extra hours of duty they put in.

“The proposal in the Labour manifesto was for adequate compensation [and not the actual amount] so we will not be approaching that sum [€50 million] for sure. Our hope is to table the offer in the coming weeks,” Mr Abela told this newspaper when asked if there had been any breakthrough in this dispute.

The issue goes back to a 1993 collective agreement which had established a 46-hour week beyond which officers would have the right to claim overtime. Prior to this arrangement, they used to receive a meagre €23.30 a month, regardless of the number of hours spent at work. However, the overtime arrangement was never implemented as the work rosters were never realigned to the agreement. In some cases, officers were working up to 96 hours a week.

The issue involving about 500 officers dragged on until 2009, when the Malta Police Association filed a judicial letter with the backing of almost the entire members of the force. Subsequently, the government made amends by tweaking the shifts but no compensation agreement was ever reached.

At one stage, the Nationalist administration had tabled a verbal offer in the region of €12 million but no formal proposal was ever made. Nevertheless, the aggrieved parties had rejected the sum straightaway, deeming it to be way below their preliminary estimates, which, at the time, were in the region of €56 million.

Subsequently, in its 2013 general election manifesto, the Labour Party had promised to address the solution once and for all by giving “adequate compensation”.

However, talks with the Malta Police Association, which, since then, has become a fully-fledge union and the Police Officers Union only started last January, nearly three years after Labour was elected to government.

In his reply, Mr Abela expressed his hope that the ministry would be submitting its offer to both unions in the coming weeks but noted that the package had not yet been debated internally at government level.

“Now I have a better idea on the unions’ positions and views as well as the manner in which this measure can be implemented,” he said. The minister, however, declined to divulge any further details.

Sources told this newspaper one of the stumbling blocks during the talks was to try and come up with a proper compensation figure backed by documented evidence.