Present and future of the Customs control of goods transported by road under the TIR procedure, at the Russia-EU Customs border

Conference Programme
"CONTRIBUTION OF THE TIR SYSTEM TO THE SECURITY OF TRADE AND TRANSPORT"

Conference Hall of the Federal Customs Service of the Russian Federation (FCS RF)
1-a, Komsomolskaya Ploschad, Moscow
13-14 March 2007

Present and future of the Customs control of goods transported by road under the TIR procedure, at the Russia-EU Customs border.

Pavels Groshevs, Secretary General, Road Carriers Association «Latvijas Auto»

One of the advantages offered by the TIR System is a faster border crossing by trucks. Thus the delivery time is reduced as there is no physical goods inspection at border crossing points and no special national documents are to be filled.

One of the TIR principles is recognition by transit and destination states of the Customs control measures taken in the country of departure.

In practice the Russian Customs service quite often mistrust the controls carried out by Customs authorities at departure.

Yet at border crossings goods transported under the TIR procedure are subject to practically the same control measures as ordinary goods. The fact that the Customs seals put by the departure Customs office on cargo compartments and containers are intact is not taken into account.

At present we can identify a number of factors impeding smooth delivery of goods to consignees in Russia:

1. Frequent inspection of goods at border crossings justified by the presence of inspection requirements in the risk profile. Bearing in mind that risk profiles are not accessible for the operator, the latter can not be sure whether the inspection is truly justified or if this is just a subjective opinion of the Customs officer.

The operator does not receive a copy of the decision on inspection containing the grounds for such inspection (at least the risk profile number). The operator has no possibility to judge whether or not it was an exceptional case foreseen by the Article 5.2 of the TIR Convention.

2. Officials at border crossings require from operators information which goes beyond the responsibilities and possibilities identified for operators by international road transport legislation.

Officials at border crossings verify the information contained in the CMR bill, compare it with the information from other commercial documents, they inspect the goods and carry out expertises, all of which result in delays in goods delivery, additional costs and administrative responsibilities for the operator.

Example: officials at the border crossing, before giving an authorisation to continue a TIR operation, reconcile the data contained in commercial documents with the data indicated in the CMR bill. They calculate the weight mentioned in commercial documents by the shipper (within the accuracy of several grammes) and discover that the CMR mentions the weight which is one kilogramme lower. The conclusion is that the operator communicated the wrong weight information. They do not take into account the fact that the operator, when receiving the goods, is not expected to check the weight information. He only checks the number of packages.

3. An inspection on the grounds of the risk profile requirements inevitably takes place if officials, while checking transport documents (CMR bill), find in box 18 a note (as foreseen by the TIR Convention) saying that during loading the operator had no possibility to check the goods (for different reasons such as the shipper did not let the operator onto the loading site, the loading was done by several loading teams etc., which is a usual practice in European countries).

In course of inspection packages are opened and in case of a faulty description the officers conclude that the operator submitted wrong information on the goods, thus ignoring the fact that the operator simply transports the goods and is not responsible for checking the goods inside the packages.

The same happens when documents contain duly certified corrections.

4. Recently, officers at the Pskov Customs Office have been refusing to take on charge TIR operations in Russia orally, explaining that the amount of Customs fees and duties exceeds the maximum amount of guarantees provided under one TIR Carnet.

No supporting calculation is provided to the operator.

The demand of the operator to take on charge the TIR Carnet is refused. In doing so the Customs offices ignore the recommendation to enter an "escort" notice into box 5 "Miscellaneous" of the counterfoil 1, accompanied with a summary of reasons that require such an escort (Art. 23 of the TIR Convention).

The provisions of the TIR Convention do not preclude the application of other provisions, either national or international, governing transport, but all controls should be kept to a minimum and limited to cases where the circumstances or the real risks justify such controls. (Art. 47 of the TIR Convention)

Russian Customs bodies run the lowest risk of not being able to carry out a documentary and physical examination of goods at the Customs post of destination.

Russian Customs authorities apply in Russian territory an efficient national programme to control goods delivery from the Customs office of entry to the destination Customs office. Nowadays it is well known that the fact of non-delivery of goods to a destination Customs office will be discovered by the Russian Customs authorities.

But in practice a non-delivery does not always mean that the operator failed to fulfill his obligations. Quite frequently a non-delivery takes place because the operator could not deliver the goods to the destination Customs office, for example, because of robberies on roads and at parking areas.

"Latvijas auto" guaranteeing association issued during the three years from 2004 to 2006 272,072 TIR Carnets.

During those three years "Latvijas auto" received 41 communications concerning cases of non-delivery of goods to destinations Customs offices in Russia.

Almost two thirds of these cases, that is 28 out of the 41, are cases of theft and robbery.

“Latvijas Auto” believes that the following measures are to be taken:

To modernise existing and open new border crossing points at the Russian-Latvian border for trucks and build up the necessary infrastructure (roads, parking areas etc). Private companies should not be contracted to perform Customs formalities and control of goods delivery by road transport. The premises used by private entities at border crossing points could accommodate additional staff of state control services.
To consider organisation at border crossing points of joint control by Customs authorities of neighboring countries.
To ensure advance exchange of information on transport operations between national Customs authorities and make available to national guaranteeing associations electronic TIR Carnet forms (formats) and filing procedures in order to give to operators the possibility to prepare them in advance and submit them to Russian Customs authorities at border crossings
To staff control services with professional personnel and provide equipment for smooth operation during working hours. To ensure permanent supervision of actions and decisions taken by Customs officials at their service posts by senior officers during working hours (including night hours and week-ends).
To make sure that Customs control of international operations at border crossing points is carried out only with regard to the goals and objectives of goods delivery to the destination Customs office. To make available official instructions for control services officials, bringing their acts and decisions in line with the provisions of international agreements and existing national laws.
To perform some controls directly at places of goods delivery in the presence of the consignee, who retains all the information and documents the Customs services might need for control purposes.
To make available to the guaranteeing association on a regular basis the information based on Customs service analysis of irregularities of TIR operations and reasons for refusals of crossing the Russian border (in order to inform the TIR carnet holders in good time about the inadmissibility of similar misdeeds in future and to eventually organise a corresponding training course).
To include into Customs legislation clarifications as to the usage of weight data for the purposes of Customs control at border crossing points when making formalities required for transportation of goods from the Customs office of entry to the destination Customs office. Such clarifications would preclude situations when weight-related data (indicated in the shipping document) are qualified as doubtful information declared by the operator, followed by unjustified charging of the operator with a violation of the Customs legislation. Clear-cut clarifications should be made available as to the requirements that the shipping documents are expected to comply with at border crossing points.
If we admit that CMR bills as well as the other documents controlled by Customs authorities (shipping documents handed over to the operator) are actually filed by shippers (or their representatives), it seems necessary to make sure that these documents are filed in accordance with the requirements of international agreements and national legislation of the countries where the international transport operation takes place.
The issue of completion of documents might be discussed on the basis of existing international agreements (conventions) governing goods transportation. Such a discussion could result in the introduction of corresponding amendments taking into account today’s particularities of international goods transportation (road transport, multimodal transport, container transport).
Eventually the risk management system could make a distinction between risk profiles:
1) those applied for the purposes of transportation of goods to the destination Customs office;
2) those applied for the purposes of goods declaration by the consignee.
Such differentiation could help to formulate a list and scope of steps to be taken for the purposes of controls solely in the framework of Customs procedures required for internal Customs transit under the TIR procedure, but not for verification of the Customs declaration submitted by the consignee. The goals and objectives of the Customs control at the entry point, as far as the information and documents submitted by the operator are concerned, cannot be the same as for the purposes of verification of the Customs declaration submitted by the consignee.
Maybe it would be worthwhile to consider simplified control procedures at entry points for operators who respect Customs legislation, that is operators who perform goods transport in good faith under Customs control.

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