Could have earned billions of rupees more to state, if some didn’t put their foot down: Outgoing Excise Chief

Acknowledging the fact that many within the department had helped to perform well during his short span of authority, the incumbent Chief of Excise, who will go on retirement tomorrow, said he could have earned billions of rupees more for the state as revenue if some hadn’t put their foot down.

Speaking exclusively to the Daily Mirror the Commissioner General of Excise U. L. Udaya Kumara Perera said some quarters of the industry including certain bureaucrats were not very helpful in his efforts of laying blueprints to enhance the tax revenue through liquor and beedi manufacturing in the country.

Udaya Kumara Perera said that since he took over the helm as the Commissioner General from December 12th last year, he had managed to bring forward many positive initiatives, including achieving a 102% tax revenue increase to the government during the first half of 2025 by making Rs.120 billion.

“I managed to bring down the fake sticker pasting scam on locally made liquor bottles almost to a zero and surpassed the tax revenue target by 102% during the first six months as laid out by the Ministry of Finance.

For this many clean and honest officials within the Department of Excise helped me a lot and to minimise corruption,” the Excise chief said.

However, some such initiatives proposed by him to increase revenue generation was to introduce a systematic proposal to curb unlawful beedi production in the country by reducing the cess on imported beedi leaves, thus closing avenues to smuggle such items from sea routes.

Another initiative was to increase the incentives of all Excise officials, thus discouraging them from accepting kickbacks from interested parties. However, none of these proposals have been given the ‘green light’ to proceed by certain competent authorities within the Ministry of Finance at one point, the official said.

U. L. Udaya Kumara Perera is a special grade officer of the Sri Lanka Administrative Service, who has earned a reputation as the head of the Department of Excise for a long time owing to his clean and unwavering practices. He was the Senior Commissioner of the Inland Revenue Department before joining the Department of Excise.