Sri Lanka\u2019s liquor bottle security sticker system has come under renewed scrutiny after Committee on Public Finance Chairman Dr. Harsha de Silva raised concerns over its cost and effectiveness. According to Dr. de Silva, the Government pays approximately USD 8 per 1,000 security stickers or digital security markings, while he claimed the cost of digitally printing the same quantity could be around 12 US cents per 1,000.<\/p>\n
The security sticker system was introduced to identify legally manufactured or imported alcoholic beverages, verify excise-duty payments and prevent the circulation of illicit liquor. However, Dr. de Silva alleged that weaknesses in the system could enable tax evasion and cause substantial revenue losses to the State. He further claimed that the money reportedly being lost could be sufficient to fund approximately eight projects comparable to the Suwa Seriya ambulance services.<\/p>\n
Concerns intensified following a police raid on an alleged illegal liquor operation in Malabe, where security stickers were reportedly found on bottles containing illicit liquor. Investigators are examining whether the stickers were genuine labels obtained unlawfully, diverted from authorised channels or counterfeit. The incident has increased calls for a transparent investigation into the pricing, procurement, distribution and monitoring of security stickers to protect government revenue, legitimate businesses and consumers.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Sri Lanka\u2019s liquor bottle security sticker system has come under renewed scrutiny after Committee on Public Finance Chairman Dr. Harsha de Silva raised concerns over its cost and effectiveness. According to Dr. de Silva, the Government pays approximately USD 8 per 1,000 security stickers or digital security markings, while he claimed the cost of digitally …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2207,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2206","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-alcohol-news-srilanka"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alcohol.lk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2206","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alcohol.lk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alcohol.lk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alcohol.lk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alcohol.lk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2206"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/alcohol.lk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2206\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2208,"href":"https:\/\/alcohol.lk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2206\/revisions\/2208"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alcohol.lk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2207"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alcohol.lk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2206"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alcohol.lk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2206"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alcohol.lk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2206"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}