Call for tougher stance on box misdeclarations

That is the message from both the TT Club and the International Cargo Handling Co-ordination Association (ICHCA), which continue to highlight the dangers of misdeclarations as they seek ways of cracking down on a problem which puts both lives and ships in danger.
Both groups claim the shipping industry should not look for outside assistance in tackling a practice which is thought to be widespread but is nevertheless very hard to quantify.
“It is up to those in the transport chain to do something,”  ICHCA International’s safety panel chairman, Mike Compton, said.
“It is neither reasonable nor practical to expect enforcement agencies to intervene.”
The issue of misdeclarations has come to the fore again in recent weeks following investigation of an accident involving the feedership Husky Trader, with a container stack collapsing because boxes thought to be empty actually contained cargo.
While in that case the shipper was not to blame as the mistake was attributed to a software glitch, the incident again drew attention to the dangers of both under and over declaring the weight of a container.
The ICHCA has been working closely with other organisations, including the TT Club, to warn about the hazards of misdeclarations.
“Correct declaration is what is needed,” the club’s risk management director Peregrine Storrs-Fox wrote late last month.
“Evidence of actual weight could be required, where such facilities exist, or the terminal, in collaboration with its shipping company customers, could arrange to check weight.
“However, the continuing concern that the TT Club will focus on is that the essential responsibility of the shipper to declare cargo is being blurred by suggesting that nodal points in the supply chain, such as terminals, assume this responsibility, whereas they can only provide a check on the truth of what is declared.”
It was “perplexing” that carriers, which “after all earn their crust essentially on weight and cube”, seemed reluctant to enforce their rights under carriage contracts when the shipper fails to comply with one of his core international convention obligations, Mr Storrs-Fox said.