At least five administrators object to the new book by NRC journalists Joep Dohmen and Paul van der Steen about Limburg’s administrative culture. That new book, ‘The Friends Reunion’, will be released in April.
That’s what the writers told in the L1 program De Voting.
Lawyers
According to Joep Dohmen, all the facts must be correct. “That is why some lawyers from the trade union and the publisher are also watching with us. “The book appears almost 25 years after ‘The Friends’ Republic’ by the same Dohmen. The reason at that time was a large number of administrative scandals in Limburg that eventually also led to criminal cases and convictions. Passages from the new book have been submitted for rebuttal to those involved, says Dohmen: “The starting point is, what we write must be correct. So there are now five or six of those people who say that things are not correct.”
Koopmans
One of those people is former deputy Ger Koopmans. According to a parliamentary inquiry, he has created the appearance of a conflict of interest around a supervisory directorship that he held during his deputy position. There appears to have been no actual conflict of interest.
‘Unfounded suggestive’
Koopmans says that he has raised the alarm with the management and editor-in-chief of NRC Handelsblad to L1. “Repeatedly, sometimes incorrectly and often unfounded, suggestive reporting, as well as processing this in a book again, can lead to me wanting or having to recover the damage suffered,” Koopmans writes. In an explanation, Koopmans tells L1 that he has requested NRC “to look carefully at all articles, not only at the facts but especially at the interpretation surrounding those facts. In a number of cases I have also asked for rectification.”
Response NRC
The editors-in-chief of NRC Handelsblad have not yet responded to Koopmans’ letter. Dohmen says that as far as he is concerned, nothing is being rectified: “All our facts are correct.”
Activism
At the end of January, a committee presented a report on Limburg’s administrative culture. In it, the two journalists of the NRC were hit hard. They would have been guilty of voting and activist journalism. According to Dohmen, the commission failed to apply a hearing before conclusions were drawn.
Also read: No pattern of integrity violations Limburg administration