Malta’s Police Force has just issued vacancies for Police Inspectors. The starting salary is just up to €29,000 per year (gross) and increases up to €33,000 after 4 years. With this salary, a police officer is expected to conduct investigations, draw up court cases with the Attorney-General and testify in Court. It’s a very intensive job which requires great attention to detail and also different skills.
Police Commissioner Angelo Gafa has been in his role since 2020. After five years you would expect him to address major issues within the Police Force, however the salaries issue was never tackled. There are also ridiculous bureaucratic barriers for such a potential reform and some of these barriers are being placed by an incredibly incompetent government official who has a position of significant power in the government. It’s of course nepotism that got her there. Joyce Cassar is The Permanent Secretary for People and Standards at the Office of the Prime Minister and she serves as a sort of HR for the civil service. Joyce Cassar thinks that Police salaries should be anchored with the scale of civil-service because the Police are not an autonomous and independent entity.
On the other hand, Police Commissioner Angelo Gafa didn’t push back against these bureaucratic banalities. The Police Commissioner has many legal and bureaucratic options to propose alternatives that would override Joyce Cassar’s opinions. However, the Police Commissioner can’t be bothered to do so because he has a salary of over €100,000 per year.
Police officers need to be paid decent salaries to ensure effective security and deter corruption. The fact that salaries of Police officers are kept low may also be intentional to deprive the Police of the moral and the candidates needed to address sophisticated crime as corruption in politics and international money-laundering.
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