A small group of police officers gets an increase in salary in a hush-hush way.

Usually, when there is a salary increase, the Government makes it a point to announce it to all and sundry. The news will be splashed on the first pages of the mainstream newspapers as a propaganda exercise in favour of the Government. But this is not what has happened recently in the police force. A small section of the Malta Police Force got a salary increase, but this was kept hidden and done in a hush-hush way.

This site is informed that a decision was recently taken to give an ad-hoc bonus to those officers forming part of the Financial Criminal Investigations Department (FCID). While this site is not against such an increase, police officers contacted it to express their anger, as this is not how salary increases should be made. Furthermore, increases should have never been made in this sectorial manner, leading to discrimination between policemen working within the same force.

The truth is that the majority of police officers did not benefit from any increase in their wages in any form of bonuses. Anger was expressed with this site against the minister responsible for the police, Byron Camilleri, for the simple reason that the majority of the members of the police force were not given any increase. This site can confirm that this decision has left many police officers feeling betrayed by their union association. What is even worse, this additional bonus which is nothing but an increase in salary to just a small group of what is now being considered privileged policemen, has increased the demotivation currently present within all the rest of the ranks of the police force.

What follows is a breakdown of the increase in the bonuses.

Those with less than three years of service at FCID had an over increase of 5000 euros, which amounts to 384 euros per month.
Those with more than three years of service at FCID had an increase of 8k per year, which makes an increase of 615 euros per month.
Those with more than six years of service at FCID had an increase of 10k per year. Thus their increase in their salary per month was 769 euros.

I have spoken with some of those who are still waiting for an increase in their salary who have told me that even though the force is negotiating another sectorial agreement for the rest of the police officers, the Government is not ready to give this level of increase in salary to the remaining members of the police force. What is being offered to the rest of the police officers differs from the bonuses received by the officers at the FCID. This is increasing frustration among the members of the police force. The general feeling is that this was another unfair decision by Robert Abela’s Government and his Minister, Byron Camilleri. Several police officers work hard and face similar challenging situations, if not worse, than those faced by the FCID section but are being left in the cold. Their work still needs to be recognized or appreciated as they are being denied this same salary increase in the form of bonuses. Not only the officers of the FCID are contributing to the success of decreasing the crime level in Malta. There are other sections of the police force which are contributing to this decrease, but their work still needs to be recognized.

Faced with this situation, some police officers are now mulling the option of leaving the force for good. With this sectorial agreement, the Government has created another problem leading to the demoralization of police officers. Today’s morale is very low because many officers realize that some officers are more equal than others.