Port security: real or imagined?

Ports are inherently vulnerable to terrorism due to their size, variety of operations, numbers of users and volumes of ships and goods, particularly containers, transiting the facilities daily.

There are roughly 45-50,000 cargo ships trading internationally to some 4,000 ports around the globe. Add to that some 90-100m containers moving annually deepsea and shortsea plus numerous ferry services criss-crossing the sea lanes, and we have something to worry about.

Ports are spending large amounts of money on security – from better fencing to CCTV equipment, seaborne patrols to underwater ROVs. In the US, Baltimore for example, has just received US$5.5m from the State to install video surveillance. Should they not have had this some time ago?

The Coastguard estimates that some US$4.6bn still needs to be spent by US ports over the next 10 years to improve security. That is a lot of money.

Are we to read between the lines that ports are really not that secure at the moment despite the various global initiatives such as ISPS, C-TPAT, CSI and a whole raft of other acronymed programmes? Europe is beginning to wake up to this issue as well, as is Asia.

Anyone, whether trading with the US or not, needs to be informed and develop improved security measures.

The ultimate goal of the US Customs and Border Protection is to reach back to the beginning of the logistics supply chain. Is this really feasible when the CTPAT has less than 50% of importers signed up (and what do they get for that? Not a lot). The new long-arm reach is embodied in the “Secure Freight” initiative laid out in July by DHS Secretary Chertoff. So far however, it exists in name only, a blank page so to speak, but will it create additional paperwork and associated costs for importers? Of course it will.

As with other security issues, ports and shipping lines will pass on the costs as surcharges to the consumer. The hope is that as in the future all these programmes will come together in a logical and workable system that can be depended upon to keep us secure – then we can all get a good night’s sleep.