• Over 100,000 liquor bottles  with fake security stickers seized

By Kurulu Koojana Kariyakarawana   

The revenue of the Department of Excise has increased by  Rs.1 billion during a period of one month since the directives made by  the Parliament Committee on Ways and Means to escalate and expedite  raids on liquor bottles with fake security stickers.    

It transpired when the Committee on Ways and Means met  at the Parliament yesterday under the chairmanship of MP Patali Champika  Ranawaka, that in the last month alone over 100,000 liquor bottles  with fake security stickers had been seized by the Excise Department. 

 
The committee when met on August 10th gave a directive to  the Excise Commissioner General to escalate and expedite detections on  domestically produced liquor bottles with fake security stickers.   

Committee head MP Ranawaka on several occasions made  directives to the relevant authorities to take strict action to  eliminate the illegal liquor production with fake security stickers as  it will drastically reduce the tax revenue to the state.   

The Parliamentarian even on a recent occasion ordered to  recall of the tender of introducing and printing a new security sticker  with foolproof measures to mitigate the controversial tax fraud.   

By the proposed new QR code the ability to identify whether  a liquor product is genuine or not, as well as the amount of tax  revenue to the Excise Department could be determined.