President Ranil Wickremesinghe has instructed officials to immediately suspend the issuance of new excise permits. The Ministry of Finance has also been informed to conduct an investigation on the currently issued excise permits.
Accordingly, the Ministry of Finance has instructed the Excise Department to conduct a relevant investigation and submit a report. It has been revealed that there are no liquor stores in some areas of the island and there are many liquor stores in other areas.
In such a background, the President has given these instructions on the basis that applications for the issuance of new liquor licenses have been issued. In this regard, when asked by Excise Commissioner General Saman Jayasinghe, he said that although applications were received from the Excise Department, no license was issued to any of the applications. (Divaina)
