Whoever we may be, whatever our immediate interest, however much we carry baggage from our past, however much we have been caught by the fashion of cynicism and loss of faith in the capacity of the people, let us err today and say - nothing can stop us now!

We are very keen to see that nobody gets ill-treated or abused.

I get a sense that we've all been educated into one school of thought. I'm not surprised at all to find among the overwhelming majority of scientists, are people who would hold one particular view because that's all they're exposed to.

There are established processes of consultation between the Government, the parastatals and the trade unions, which have worked in the past. And I don't see any particular reason why they shouldn't work.

We are not being arrogant or complacent when we are said that our country, as a united nation, has never in its entire history, enjoyed such a confluence of encouraging possibilities.

The National Empowerment Fund we established some time back. And one of the challenges was to build a strong enough asset base for it to operate in a credible manner. And we believe that it can.

You might indeed be able to provide this money that people need to start a business, but can they run a business? This new consolidated agency [National Empowerment Fund] focuses on that matter of preparing people so that they can run business successfully.