Nissan board reportedly votes to remove Carlos Ghosn as Chairman

* Nissan’s board has voted to remove Carlos Ghosn from the
role of company chairman.
* The company will now appoint chief executive Hiroto Saikawa
to the role.
* Ghosn an Representative Board Director Greg Kelly are
currently being held in a Tokyo detention center.

The board of Japanese auto giant Nissan has reportedly voted to
remove Carlos Ghosn from the role of company chairman.

The Nikkei news outlet in Japan added that Nissan will now form
independent panel to prevent an unfolding scandal involving Ghosn
and at least one other senior executive.

In an explosive press conference Monday, Saikawa said that “over
many years” Ghosn and Representative Director, Greg Kelly, had been
under-reporting compensation amounts to the Tokyo Stock Exchange
securities report.

Nissan added that, in regards to Ghosn, “numerous other
significant acts of misconduct have been uncovered, such as
personal use of company assets.” The company said Ghosn had also
made inappropriate investments.

Shares in auto firm Renault, where Ghosn remains as chairman and
chief executive, have fallen 0.3 percent.

Within Nissan there are six full Board Members and three
Representative Board members. The company also has four auditors.
Executives at the French firm Renault (which Ghosn also chairs)
reportedly also dialed into the Nissan board meeting.

The Tokyo Prosecutors Office has declined to comment on whether
Ghosn has admitted to the claims, but said the Renault chairman is
being held in a Tokyo detention center.

Nissan said Monday that a whistle-blower had passed information
over Ghosn and Kelly to Nissan’s auditors who then began a wider
investigation. The evidence was then passed to Japan’s public
prosecutor.

The prosecutor said Ghosn and Kelly had conspired to understate
Ghosn pay packet at Nissan from 2010 to 2015, adding that the two
men had recorded only half the actual 10 billion yen ($88.5
million).

An alliance between Renault, Nissan, and Mitsubishi has been
built up over the last two decades. Nissan and the French
government each own 15 percent of Renault. In turn, the French auto
firm holds a 43 percent stake in Nissan.

The French government had been pushing for a full merger between
Renault and Nissan, prior to the unfolding scandal. Events of the
previous few days have cast a shadow on the merger prospects and
led some to speculate that a break -up of the three companies is
now on the cards.

Ghosn is considered a hugely influential executive within the
global automotive industry. The cross-ownership alliance of
Renault, Nissan, and Mitsubishi have all enjoyed an upswing in
fortunes under his leadership. After successfully restructuring
Renault in the late 1990s, Ghosn earned the nickname “Le Cost
Killer.”

Born in Brazil, Ghosn became the world’s first person to run two
companies on the Fortune Global 500 simultaneously when he assumed
the CEO roles at both Renault and Nissan in 2005. He stepped down
as Nissan CEO in 2017.

In June this year, Renault shareholders voted by a slim majority
to approve a 7.4 million euro ($8.4 million) pay package for
Ghosn’s work in fiscal 2017. According to other securities filings,
Ghosn earned 735 million Japanese yen ($6.52 million) from Nissan
and 227 million yen from Mitsubishi for the same period.

Related

FG Committed to tackle NOMA Disease

The Hon. Minister of State for Health, Dr. Osagie Ehanire has
reiterated the commitment of Federal Government towards reducing
cases of Noma disease in Nigeria.

Dr. Ehanire gave this assurance during the opening ceremony of
the 2nd Edition of the National Noma Day and workshop in Abuja,
recently.

Dr. Ehanire noted that Noma, otherwise known as Cancrum Oris,
was a fulminating infection of soft tissue around the mouth,
predominantly affecting younger persons with poor oral hygiene and
predisposing serious illness.

He further said that ‘’ Epidemiological data on Noma is still
scarce ,but a current estimate of the Global incidence is some
30,00 – 40,000 cases per year, with a mortality rate of
approximately 85% and a disease burden estimated to cost anywhere
between 1 & 10 Million disability adjusted life years(DALYs)’’.

He informed that ‘’ Noma is the scourge of communities with poor
environmental sanitation and hygiene practices, occurring as a
result of a complex, not fully yet understood interaction between
poor nutrition, infection and immunodeficiency’’

‘’Common diseases like malaria, measles, severe diarrhoea and
particularly, necrotising ulcerative gingivitis commonly precede
the development of Noma, he added.

Dr. Ehanire pointed out that it could be managed relatively
easily by administering antibiotics which would prevent or limit
the extent of gangrene.

He stressed that prevention and early detection of this
devastating disease would be given high priority toward reducing
incidence and improving the chances of those who contact the
disease.

He emphasised that ‘’ Noma can be prevented by a combination of
common measures like creating more national awareness of the
disease, reducing poverty ,improving hygiene, sanitation and
nutrition, Promoting exclusive breastfeeding in the first 6 months
of life, improving prenatal care, vaccination against common
childhood disease and above all, early detection and treatment of
ulcerative gingivitis and stomatitis’’.

The Minister lauded the efforts of developmental Partners like
the World Health Organisation African Region (WHO Afro), Medecins
Sans Frontiers (MSF-H), Hilfsaktion Noma and others for developing
some of the best strategy towards tackling Noma scourge in
Nigeria.

In his welcome address, the Permanent Secretary, FMOH, Mr.
Abdulazizi Abudllahi said that the awareness on oral disease
especially Noma was low among the rural dwellers in Nigeria, which
led to the Federal Ministry of Health to institutionalize the
National Noma day, to be celebrated annually so as to bring
together various stakeholders towards increase awareness on this
devastating disease in Nigeria.

In his remarks, the Nigeria Head of Mission Médecins Sans
Frontières-Holland, Phillip Aruna, said that the organisation in
collaboration with the Federal ministry of health had been running
a programme dedicated to the treatment of noma in Sokoto Children’s
Hospital.

“Patients come from all over Nigeria for treatment, with the big
majority from Sokoto, Kebbi and Zamfara States.. Four times per
year, MSF sends high-profile plastic and maxillofacial surgeons,
nurses and anaesthesiologists to work together with Nigerian
specialists on performing reconstructive surgeries on Noma
patients,” he said.

In his remarks, the WHO Officer in Charge of Nigeria, who was
represented by Dr. Alex, Mpazange, said that for effective control
of Noma, it required a multisectoral approach and urged other key
Government sectors, partners, foundations and individuals to join
effort to control the disease.