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DP World slams US port security law Dubai Ports World has criticized the SAFE Port Act, the new U.S. port security law recently signed by president George Bush, saying public-private cooperation is a more effective way of bolstering port security. “Our response may surprise you,” said David Sanborn, DP World senior vice-president and managing director of the Americas, told a maritime security conference in Washington D.C. “[The bill] is not ambitious enough. If we are actively engaged by governments, the major port operators are in a position to deliver more effective security more quickly than an act of legislation ever could.” Sanborn says that while he agrees with the bill, governments around the world could get faster, more effective action on port security by putting an end to fingerpointing and political rhetoric and addressing the issue of port security as it must be addressed – on a global scale. He believes that the unilateral or bilateral initiatives now underway are too limited in scope, and that global security standards are required to ensure that cargo scanning equipment is broadly deployed. Sanborn even weighed in on the contentious issue of 100 percent container screening, saying that a universal radiation and scanning initiative could pave the way toward this elusive goal. DP World itself, he noted, has not seen any delays at its own facilities where scanning technology has been deployed. The costs of deploying such systems on the scale required could be shared by governments and private operators, he believes. DP Word, as TransSec readers will remember, was the focus of political controversy when it proposed to buy P&O last March. P&O owned some U.S. port assets and U.S. politicians made hay over the prospect of an ‘Arab’ company coming to control those assets, eventually forcing DP to agree to sell the U.S. parts of P&O to a U.S. company. Sanborn’s speech had a pointed rejoinder: “As DP World executives – many of us Americans – have said all along, foreign-owned companies such as ours are not emblematic of the container security problem. Rather, we are a leading and essential part of the solution.”
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