Finance Minister Purbaya prepares counterfeit excise stamp detection tool

Finance Minister Purbaya Yudhi Sadewa is preparing a counterfeit excise stamp detection tool to optimise supervision of illegal cigarette circulation.

“We will implement new technology, called track and trace, from a company working in partnership with PERURI. With this, the excise stamps cannot be counterfeited,” Purbaya said when met at the Ministry of Finance office in Jakarta on Friday.

According to Purbaya, the technology uses a special scanner that can detect counterfeit excise stamps. The scanner will also be usable via mobile phones, with a feature that can detect the origin of illegal cigarette circulation.

Purbaya plans to install the technology in several major cigarette factories. The track-and-trace technology will be connected to the Directorate General of Customs and Excise (DJBC) at the Ministry of Finance, so that counterfeit excise stamp circulation can be detected in real time.

“We will place machines in major cigarette factories. Later, perhaps everything will show how much is produced. So, the machine is placed there. The data will then link directly to central Customs and Excise. Going forward, we hope that kind of manipulation will decrease. If possible, it should be eliminated entirely,” Purbaya said.

The company involved in developing this technology, besides PERURI, is a private company from abroad.

Purbaya said the procurement scheme for these machines involves a system provider company that invests, with the government paying a certain percentage.

The payment amount will later take into account the additional revenue obtained after the system is implemented. However, Purbaya has not yet detailed the percentage or the calculation mechanism.

The government plans to evaluate the effectiveness of the system over a five-year period. Purbaya stressed that use of the system can be discontinued if it does not provide additional revenue for the state.

So far, the detection tool has been trialled in Central Java and will be expanded gradually in the future.

“The machine is custom-made, it has to be built specifically, and that takes time. It has now been tried in one location in Central Java. It will be expanded in the near future. Because within six months, if I am not mistaken, we will have 100 machines. Within nine months, 240 machines,” he said.