9 February 2007

 

 

 

The agency that manages the Customs-Trade Partnership Against Terrorism will revalidate 1,200 companies in 2007, the first year that participants in the voluntary program will have their supply chain security practices verified for a second time by on-site visits to foreign suppliers.

            U.S. Customs and Border Protection will start the on-site audits of a second separate supply chain with the 183 companies that were first validated in 2003 and the 287 firms that received checkups in 2004 because those security assessments were performed in the program’s early years before CBP upgraded eligibility standards from suggested guidelines to minimum criteria, said Todd Owen, executive director of cargo and conveyance security.

            CBP plans to re-audit companies every three years as required by Congress in the Department of Homeland Security appropriations act.

            But Owen said during a Jan. 30 presentation at the American Association of Exporters and Importers winter conference in New Orleans that all Mexican highway carriers -- nearly 300 in total -- will be revalidated on an annual basis because of the risk that cargo or employees could be compromised by drug traffickers.

            The final operational figures for 2006 showed 201 companies have been suspended or removed for security breaches since the program’s inception, including 128 motor carriers.

            Another 453 companies were recently booted from the program for not complying with the Oct. 1 deadline for updating corporate security profiles on the new C-TPAT Web portal, Owen said. CBP made extensive efforts to reach out and help companies file the necessary security information, but ultimately pulled the benefit of reduced exams from those that failed to meet their commitment, he added.