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In some cases, the court has noted defects in the performance of the contract that prevent supplies destined for centers, institutions, agencies, hotels, schools, hospitals and for consumption by the population from reaching their destination on time and under the appropriate conditions, insufficiencies that must be addressed to improve management in the processes of the production chain, which can be achieved due to organizational measures and government decisions that are adopted in the effort to improve the Cuban business system in the field of transportation, objective This was materialized in Guideline No. 219 of the Economic and Social Policy of the Party and the Revolution, regarding transportation policy.
One of the premises to ensure that this service is optimal is transportation planning, since, in addition to the needs of the user, its execution depends on the availability of the means of transportation, elements that must be combined objectively. There are countless litigations in which it is appreciated that the request for transportation by the shipper is deficient and that the entities do not specify or make adjustments to the demand for transportation, situations that caused the means of transportation not to be located in the place and expected time frame.
Conflicts arise because the carriers refuse to sign the models for planning the extraction of cargoes in the port and the reconciliations of these operations in the port facilities. In turn, once the breach has occurred, the entities affected provide the weekly and monthly reconciliations that are formal, typical of the sequence of the execution of the contract, which do not reflect the causes of the infractions or delimit who was responsible.
Sometimes transportation requests that are omitted and illegible are accompanied to the judicial processes and others are received by the carrier the same day or after the date concerned.
To the above, it is added that, in the planning process, the decisions that are adopted by the commission that directs the Operation Port-Transport-Internal Economy, known as OPTEI, a government strategy that organizes and coordinates the transportation of cargo, may influence. in Cuba. However, the companies involved do not incorporate this centralized management into the contracts and, when eventualities that vary the programming occur, they do not supplement these to adapt them to the new needs of the service.
One of the obligations that correspond to the shipper is to deliver the load in adequate conditions for transportation, but it happens that fragile or easily decomposable goods are improperly packed without the carrier being told the character, specifications, precautions and special measures. to be adopted during handling and travel and, under such unsafe packaging conditions, the cargo arrives at its destination damaged, with little possibility of being used by the buyer.
The demands that the carrier establishes against the shipper are recurrent because they have not paid the contracted and executed service; others because he could not unload the means of transport upon arrival at his destination, due to his responsibility, and is forced to return to his facilities and guard the merchandise there until returning to the agreed place, which implies that the client do not receive it on the scheduled date and this gives you the right to charge for the storage, which, in most cases, is not assumed by the shipper.
For its part, the carrier is frequently sued for shortages and breakdowns that occur during transportation, failing to maintain the cargo in appropriate security conditions from the time it is received at the source until delivery at the destination, a situation that is detected in the place of delivery of the merchandise to the client, with the consequent economic affectation that for this causes that the arrival is incomplete or damaged. Faced with this problem, entities must report extraordinary events that occurred during transportation and draw up delivery records reflecting the existence of missing goods; This, on occasions, is not carried out, which makes it complex, in court litigation, to verify the existence of the damage invoked and the delimitation of liability.
Although the transport companies must execute the service within the term established in the contract, there are delays in the routes, in the merchandise unloading operations, in the client's warehouses or in the Loading and Unloading Center (CCD); then the documentation established to reflect the delays does not record the incident. It also happens that the carrier arrives with the load to the destination and the conceived place is closed; This implies the removal of the equipment, which gives rise to claims for arrears and storage. There are contracts in which the entities agreed that the CCD provides service 24 hours a day and this schedule is not complied with in practice.
Likewise, there are cases in which companies do not have a central warehouse and, upon arrival of the cargo in the territory, it has to be distributed to each of the client's warehouses, which multiplies control problems and merchandise losses. .
There is no clear definition or uniformity in the country as to who should carry out the related counting and verification services of the transported products in the CCDs, where the goods are transferred from the railway boxes to the motor vehicles that assume the transfer to the final destination. It is observed that, in the contracts signed by the companies, some foreseen these activities for the shipper, in others, for the carrier and, in various relationships of this type, the aforementioned related service was not contracted, which means that none of the interveners feel responsible.
It happens that there are entities that maintain historical relationships of land transportation of cargo and did not sign the contract to regulate the related services of tape and mooring, sealing and cleaning of railway wagons, executed in the CCD, or they did not foresee them in the agreed legal business and Due to the complexity of the relationships that arise, it is difficult to define the obligations assumed by companies to specify non-compliance and delimit the responsible party.
There are CCDs that lack a railway scale and trucks to check the weighing of the merchandise that arrives at the place, coming from other provinces for shipment, which prevents the buyer from verifying this aspect and forces him to receive the product without checking correspondence with billed. Similarly, there are others in which the count of the merchandise is carried out by a person manually, by bags, making it susceptible to human error, a situation that has led to the claim for missing items.
On the other hand, the railway boxes that remain loaded with goods in the CCD for up to 15 days without being collected and remain in the custody of the security agency or are left in a center other than the one agreed until their transfer to the final destination, without limiting the responsibility in that period of time, they can give rise to theft of the transferred products.
There are frequent disputes about the contracts signed by importing companies and clients forced to place the means of transport in the port area, within the agreed terms and terms, with the aim of extracting the goods from the warehouses for distribution, provision that these breach and cause the congestion of the port and the stoppage of the work, despite the arrival of the ships on the required date.
In the face of such insufficiencies, it is necessary to enhance the role of the contract as a regulatory instrument for commercial relations, a source of reciprocal rights and obligations, as well as the priority of strictly and efficiently fulfilling the commitments made, a premise for the proper development of productive chains. and of essential services in the country's economy, to guarantee that supplies reach social consumption with the required speed and quality.
* Judge of the Economic Chamber of the Supreme People's Court
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