In ancient times, the messenger’s job was particularly risky and unpopular. Bearers of bad news could get punished or even lose their lives. As a consequence, nobody wanted to be a messenger. In times of entire kingdoms could be lost due to poor or no communication.
Then a new rule was introduced: DON’T KILL THE MESSENGER. People understood that the message bearer was not responsible for its content. Information – good or bad - was considered important again.
Today messengers are largely safe – however they may face punishment in different ways.
Business people often act as a messenger. When shipping animal by-products internationally the importer will submit a message – in form of paperwork issued by other companies or authorities in a foreign country. Yet if something is wrong with that paperwork it is the importer who may get into trouble.
The story here happened recently to a client. A small consignment containing animal by-products shipped from country A to country B. Both countries are experienced and renowned importers and exporters of agricultural and animal derived products.
Unfortunately the veterinary health authorities in country A had used an outdated veterinary certificate for the shipment. The authorities in country B got unhappy and stopped it. The importer – my customer and unlucky messenger – was required to contact the authorities in the exporting country and arrange for a correct certificate. And of course he started paying storage fees for the detained shipment.
It turned out that this has not been the first case. The authorities in country A had issued the wrong veterinary certificate also previously. Country B got upset – of course.
We contacted the authorities in country A requesting a correct certificate. They agreed to do so BUT required the original of the old certificate to be returned to them. Here is where the real trouble began.
The authorities in country B refused to send back the rejected certificate (for safety reasons).
The authorities in country A refused to re-issue a certificate unless the old original has been returned (again for safety reasons).
The authorities in both countries didn’t even think about communicating with each other to resolve the problem.
Meanwhile the customer continued being a messenger and paying storage fees for the stopped shipment. A month passed…
Luckily someone issued the correct veterinary certificate and forgot to ask for the old one. The shipment was released. The storage bill had meanwhile grown to a 4-digit number. Yet the importer paid happily. As it was a small parcel things didn’t go really bad. With a bigger shipment things could have been much worse.
This story raised a few questions:
- Why should importers always play the dangerous role of a messenger?
- Why can’t authorities communicate directly with each other in case of problems?
- How come that officials repeatedly use the same wrong certificate version - in times when computers and centralized database make updates and communication so easy?
And - why should the messenger pay for mistakes or delays he didn't cause nor could control himself?
Possibly this is the price of not being killed anymore. But this is another story - the one of modern times...
