Facts that are beyond dispute indicate a deliberate decision by the leadership of the Police Force to make it more difficult to compensate officers for overtime duties.
Such an extent of change suggests a shift in established policy.
The recent decision by senior officials of the Force not to grant allowances to officers with office hours who are already required to work additional hours (nights and early mornings) for a two-month campaign against organised crime represents the culmination of this new policy experienced by Police members.
Furthermore, it seems that the policy for detective police officers working in provincial Crime Detection Departments (CDD) and units of the Narcotics Combat Service has also changed.
Due to serious criminal cases requiring immediate handling (such as arrest warrants, etc.), members of these units are called to work outside of their scheduled shifts.
Previously, compensation was provided for these extra working hours, which is no longer the case.
Recent requests for overtime pay approvals from heads of departments/services to competent senior police officials have been rejected. Phileleftheros has knowledge of a relevant note sent at the end of March, which explicitly denies such requests.
In many cases, such compensations are offset with rest time (up to 70%).
Additionally, communicated decisions from the leadership to those involved show a change in stance regarding personnel management issues that could lead to an increase in the budget for overtime allowances.
An example is a recent meeting concerning issues of the Port and Naval Police where a recommendation was made for “only necessary personnel to work on public holidays.”
Moreover, as we understand it, even probationary police officers are required to perform duties in the form of training, for which, if an experienced member of the Force were used, they would be compensated with a similar overtime allowance.
The climax of this new policy was the announcement by the Police leadership on March 26. As known, it responded negatively to a mass request from police union bodies (Police Association of Cyprus, “Equality” UNION, and ASDYk) to pay overtime to officers who, while having office hours, are required to work nights and early mornings as part of a two-month operation (for the prevention and combating of organised crime).
As informed by Phileleftheros, the budget that should have been allocated for covering the overtime amounts to 100,000 euros.
However, the leadership decided to grant the affected officers equivalent rest time instead.
A source from Phileleftheros mentioned that this policy does not seem to be related to economic constraints.
They added that the Police could appeal to the Ministry of Finance for additional credits due to emergency needs (e.g., guarding and patrolling facilities in Cyprus connected to military operations in the Middle East).
Additionally, as reported in our newspaper by someone knowledgeable about the relevant procedures, the Minister of Finance, Makis Keravnos, although very careful in his dealings, responds to well-justified requests accompanied by a specific plan.
However, several times the issue of police overtime duties has been raised, the cost of which in recent years has been budgeted at 5.5 million annually, but in the end, four times that amount is paid.
Last winter, during parliamentary scrutiny, it emerged that from the 5.3 million allocated by the Police for officer overtime based on its 2023 budget, by September of the same year, 14.4 million had been spent.
In simple terms, the Police had paid out 272% more than the budgeted amount by the 9th month of 2023.
