Chairperson, hon Deputy President, all Members of Parliament, we want to start by celebrating, because while the board was going through this period of turmoil, the SABC had a duty to broadcast the happenings of the World Cup.
Everybody, from all parties, has accepted that our World Cup last year, irrespective of the problems that the board was going through, went very well and that it was the biggest successful thing South Africa has ever experienced. [Applause.] Thank you for the hands, they are nice. [Laughter.]
The other important thing is that the independence of the board, more than any other thing, is ensured through the laws that are in place. It is governed by legislation. There is the Broadcasting Charter, and the independence of the board is also regulated by the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa.
So, all mechanisms to ensure its unbiasedness and its impartiality are guaranteed by law. However, I want to also say that the board is very important to all of us because the board has a mandate that is in the public interest.
The public of South Africa told us only now in our different political parties that the mandate they are giving us is to create jobs, and this message must be communicated because we are not going to create jobs alone as a government. We will have to create jobs with the people. The people are the best assets for job creation that this country has.
As a result, when analysts say to us we need engineers, we have to go back to our people and say we need to train you as engineers, so that these engineers can create factories to employ people. And I must just say briefly, by the way, that historically, by law, blacks were not allowed to be engineers. That is why all black universities such as Turfloop, Fort Hare, Ongoye, even the independent homeland ones - the University of Bophuthatswana, Transkei - and even the first urban black university, according to P W Botha's reform vista, did not have engineering faculties. This was because an engineering faculty was forbidden territory. It was a forbidden tree in the garden of Eden. [Laughter.]
The mandate that we have from our people is to create jobs and that mandate says to us the board must drive ...