Namibian government officials were surprised to learn that American pop star Michael Jackson would not be arriving on Friday as they had thought.
An American organisation claiming to represent Jackson, St Louis-based Adventure in Africa Tours, had sent a letter to President Sam Nujoma saying the singer planned to visit Namibia as part of a 12-day African cultural tour.
A meeting was scheduled for Jackson with the president at noon, Nujoma’s personal assistant, Andre Hashiyana, said on Friday.
However, Jackson spokesperson Raymone Bain said the travel company had acted without the singer’s permission.
”I guess we will do our due diligence to look into how this happened,” she said by telephone from Washington. ”These things do happen quite often. There are a lot of misrepresentations and misinformation.”
Bain noted that Jackson could not leave the United States because he had turned in his passport to Santa Barbara County prosecutors in California as a condition of his release after he pleaded innocent to child molestation charges. A pre-trial hearing in the case is scheduled April 30.
”It is so awful how innocent people can be taken in by people who will just run with things without having the proper authorisation to do so,” she said.
An official reached at Adventure in Africa Tours maintained a trip had been planned but fell through. She did not know why and did not give her name. The company’s director was not immediately available for comment.
News of the supposed visit had made headlines in Namibia. It would have been Jackson’s third trip to Namibia, where he is immensely popular and gets a reception usually accorded visiting heads of state.
Hashiyana said Nujoma had been informed of the mistake and changed his diary accordingly.
”If he does come, he is welcome to Namibia,” Hashiyana said. – Sapa-AP