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.
hgrech@timesofmalta.com