Guest article by Capt. Noor Ahmed Ebrahim

There is no doubt that cargo carriage by sea is the most cost-effective way for moving mass goods around the world. About 90% of the world’s goods are transported by sea of which over 70% are transported as containerized cargo. Efficient transportation demands for a multimodal shipment.

One can only agree less to the fact that the revolutionary containerized cargo has made the world smaller and the world economy bigger. Some of the manufactured goods shipped in ocean containers include vehicles, Arms & ammunitions, Explosives, medical items, machine parts, electronics, paper, tires, footwear, scrap metal, apparel, auto parts, toys, food, beverages, cosmetics, garments, chemicals, furniture, consumables and appliances.

Transporting cargo in standardized containers, aids for an intermodal link enabling efficient transfer between trucks, trains, ships and barges through specialized terminals. More than three quarters of a billion TEU’s are moved today. It is predicted that by 2020 it will cross 1billion due to growing demands of new products.

Tens of Millions of work force are employed via logistics, supply chain, warehouses, CFS&ICD, Customs, Surveyors, seafarers, port workers, security personnel, government authorities and other shipping related businesses. Unfortunately, the biggest drawback in containerized cargo, is misdeclared and undeclared cargo. It is seen as an alien in transportation industry. An area yet to be explored full.

Still a fear factor is looming around today due to an unanswered question, what really is inside the container that I am exposed to?

When we have our responsibilities defined and assigned thought out the chain of supply, we suffer terribly in feasibility to ensure same. In today’s fast-moving world, everything is designed to be systematic to achieve an easy control.

However, when it comes to a control measure one must bear in mind that a system control is bound to fail without a user control.

Example:

For a pedestrian to cross a busy road, we do have a system in place. That’s the traffic lights and zebra crossing. This system control will fail when an alien called offender is involved. User control will help overcome this alien issue when pedestrian chooses to look on either side of the road apart from following traffic lights and zebra cross.

Perhaps shippers ship miss declared cargo and getaway due to lack of policing by the authorities.

Shipping companies investing in sophisticated software to tackle misdeclaration are still struggling because of this weak link.

Let’s try and understand the weak link in supply chain’s systematic control measure:

“How many states are proactively undertaking inspection programmes on dangerous goods as required by SOLAS? “

A 2017 IMO Submission by the ICHCA calculated, based on reports that member states had submitted to the IMO, that inspections represented less than four out of every 100,000 containers. This data only takes in to account, inspections made on declared dangerous goods.

When a shipper learns this, he feels encouraged in his offence.

Ships are often the subject of numerous concentrated inspection campaigns – can the same be made on shippers who manufacture and/or export hazardous cargo?

What role should terminals play to try and prevent that cargo from being shipped if misdeclared?

In a cargo incident investigation report how many times do we see all stakeholders scrutinized?

There are more questions than answers.

Shipping lines are like airline staffs which accepts the luggage from passenger on a mere trust and declaration without verifying what actually is inside of it.

When a shipper declares his commodity to a carrier, he or she is inclined to believe the declared as true because it is shipper’s responsibility to declare cargo correctly.

Carrier’s scope is limited to verification at documentation level.

All documents submitted by shipper are checked with high magnitude and compared against known key words list of synonyms of possible misdeclared or potential hazardous cargo.

There are many softwares available in the market to make this document scanning process faster.
End of the day the scan is made on the declaration given by the shipper. How can we be sure if the declaration is genuine?

We may argue all day saying that Shipper warrants that all documents and other information provided to the Carrier by the Shipper or its agents, which may affect the applicable freight or other charges, are accurate.

Can a physical inspection by carrier be a solution?

How feasible is it to cover all containers shipped, to verify the commodity description, cargo nature, cargo weight, cargo measurement and/or piece count as declared by the shipper to be contained therein?

Is it practically possible to beat the state’s establishment figure in inspection?

One can only imagine how would it be if airlines staff starts to do security personnel job at the airport. To tackle misdeclaration the industry needs to unite to strengthen the weak link and plug the gaps. All stakeholders have a role to play. Transport workers deserve a tougher policing of shippers by states.

Any failure in this link is a compromise in safety. Carrier’s tariff rules and rates do matter in cargo patrol implementation, because bottom line is business return of investment.

At the same time leave alone evils of society, it is in the business interest of the Shipper that we see today, undisclosed goods and wrongly declared goods.

Determination to avoid carrying unsafe cargo should always be GREATER than the desire to carry. Top level scrutiny at the booking stage is of vital importance.

This demands for a drive-in behavioral change in the industry. We must move forward “doublecheck before rejecting a shipment” to “doublecheck before accepting a shipment”.

If Liner A refuses to carry my cargo, Liner B is ready to accept it and exercise the business tie and clause with Liner A and place that cargo onboard of Liner A.

A work around is not a correct solution. As claimed by scholars, experts, authors, perhaps Blockchain technology will have a future role to play in product verification.

Until the industry gears up to tackle this alien challenge, we are bound to see many more misdeclarations and probably therefore accidents and loss.