Do not go after small fish in 2025 to meet performance evaluation: Excise Chief warns officers

By Kurulu Koojana Kariyakarawana

The newly appointed Chief of the Department of Excise yesterday asked his officials ‘not to go after small fish’ in the new year to meet annual performance evaluation, but to raid major scale illicit liquor dens and narcotic substances that will create a true impact in the society.

Speaking to the Daily Mirror U. L. Udaya Kumara Perera said he will take measures to cancel the traditional target base performance evaluation scheme where the Excise officials are given a designated number of cases to produce in courts annually but to ‘go after bigger fish’ that violates the law.

There are six special units within the Excise Department, including five Bureau of Special Operations (BSO) units and the Narcotic Unit, where the officials are given a target of 250 to 300 court cases to complete annually to meet their performance evaluation.

“In this way, certain officers merely go after individuals having two or three bottles of ‘Kasippu’ or a few ounces of Ganja to get a court case and add to their annual target, which will have no genuine impact in the society when maintaining law and order.

Therefore, I have instructed them to find and go only after sharks from the beginning of the New Year, especially to bring a notable reduction in the illicit liquor industry.

From here onwards, officers’ performance is evaluated only on the impactful major cases they bust and not on the mere number of court cases they produce,” the Excise Commissioner General said.

“Previously, the officers who receive intelligence to bust major raids are paid a 25% extra allowance to their monthly salary as an encouragement. But this will be amended in 2025 to benefit everyone in the particular unit or team to benefit from a notable detection like the rewards schemes followed by Sri Lanka Customs,” the ECG said.