Minister of Public Enterprises Lynne Brown has granted Eskom’s board more time to come up with a new pension payout proposal for the parastatal’s former group chief executive Brian Molefe.

This is after Brown last week rejected a R30-million “golden handshake” for the former Eskom boss and instructed the electricity provider’s board to report back with an appropriate payout proposal within seven days.

 She said she found the original proposal “lacking in legal rationale” and that it could not be substantiated as a performance reward.

However‚ on Wednesday she said she had granted the Board of Eskom more time to resolve the pension-out issue “through a mutually beneficial consultation process”.

“The Board has asked for more time to finalise their internal process and in the interest of fairness‚ I have acceded to it‚” Brown said on Wednesday.

“The Chairperson‚ Dr Ben Ngubane approached me this week and he indicated that the process has started. However‚ he requested an extension which I have granted‚” she added.

Molefe was only at the state-owned entity for 18 months.