TOKYO: Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings Inc. announced on Wednesday pay cuts for its president and another executive over a series of security flaws at its Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear power plant in Niigata Prefecture, central Japan.

TEPCO President Tomoaki Kobayakawa and Managing Executive Officer Shigenori Makino will each take a 30 percent pay cut for three months.

Chairman Yoshimitsu Kobayashi told an online press conference that he has instructed Kobayakawa and others to consider the relocation of the nuclear division of the company’s headquarters to Niigata to help prevent a recurrence of the problem.

TEPCO also said Makino will resign as a board director on Sept. 30. He will also step down as head of the company’s Nuclear Power & Plant Siting Division on Oct. 1.

Takeo Ishii will step down as a TEPCO executive and head of the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant on Sept. 30.

Managing Executive Officer Takeyuki Inagaki will serve concurrently as head of the Nuclear Power & Plant Siting Division and chief of the nuclear plant.

At the press conference, Kobayakawa offered an apology over the problems as top executive.

Kobayashi said, “I apologize for causing concerns and a sense of distrust.”

On the reason for considering the transfer of the nuclear division from the headquarters to Niigata, Kobayashi said TEPCO failed to deal with the security flaws properly despite an emergency situation due to the disadvantage of the division’s location, which is far from the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant.

When Kobayakawa and Makino will take their pay cuts has yet to be decided.

Kobayakawa and others have voluntarily returned 30 pct of their pay for six months since April this year over the series of problems at the plant that started in January 2018, including a glitch of a system to detect intruders on multiple occasions.

JIJI Press