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Liquor sticker from next Monday

30 Dec 2021

By Imsha Iqbal The implementation of foolproof stickers and the labelling system for the domestically manufactured alcohol as well as cans is to come into effect from Monday (3 January 2022) onwards, the Ministry of Finance said yesterday (29), issuing a statement. The Ministry statement noted: “Liquor sticker and its (labelling) management system was initially implemented to all imported liquor on 20 July 2020. Also, the said system is to come into effect to locally manufactured liquor (from) 3 January 2022 onwards.” The Ministry of Finance made these remarks with regard to a new story that was recently published on a local news website with the headline “Another major racket of Rajapaksa sons!”. The clarification of the above-mentioned story read: “The media report that said each liquor stamp that the Government of Sri Lanka (GoSL) purchases from the Madras Security Printers (MSP) in India for Rs. 1.21, whereas MSP pays an amount of Rs. 1.50 for a third party, is false and misinforms the public.” As a response to the allegations levelled by the local news website, the Ministry of Finance clarified that there is no truth to the allegation of racketeering from the liquor sticker. Additionally, the Ministry denied the accusation made by the media report which said that Minister of Finance Basil Rajapaksa has undertaken the contract in this regard and given it to the MSP despite the initial excise announcement No. 04/2019, which was made by then Minister of Finance Mangala Samaraweera. According to the Ministry statement, the said news story of the website, which was published last Saturday (25), is “unfounded, politically motivated, and without proper understanding on relevant issues”. This implementation of the liquor sticker assures the consumer purchases authentic products and contributes to tackling tax evasion on alcohol products, while the Government earns an excise tax revenue of approximate Rs. 40 billion per annum. According to Excise Department Deputy Commissioner for Supply Chain Regulation and IT R.M. Rathnayake, the sticker is said to be a paper-based, self-adhesive label intended to be affixed on alcohol packages such as bottles, tetra packs, cans, as well as kegs. With regard to the sticker management system, it is a web portal that can be utilised by the manufacturer of a certain alcohol product to replace the said adhesive sticker that, in fact, allows management of the manufacturer’s inventory with the Excise Department.


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