The president of the Namibian National Students' Organisation (Nanso), Simon Taapopi, says a newspaper article suggesting the student body got N$60 000 linked to the Fishrot scandal has potential to cause reputational harm to the organisation.
Taapopi claims the article published in The Namibian on Friday last week was malicious and demanded that the newspaper retracts the article and issue an apology to the organisation.
Taapopi says that following the publication of the article, Nanso launched an immediate investigation into the allegations and its preliminary findings proved that Nanso did not receive any funds in its bank account on 27 November 2017 as reported by the newspaper.
"It is imperative that as a reputable newspaper in Namibia, the journalists who investigated and subsequently published the article, must have ensured that the public was provided with the bank account details and the name of the account holder to which the alleged monies were transferred.
Taapopi says while Nanso acknowledges and appreciates the role the newspaper plays in uncovering corruption, the newspaper's reporting should not cause reputational damage to Nanso.
