{"id":94301,"date":"2015-07-27T18:00:53","date_gmt":"2015-07-27T16:00:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=94301"},"modified":"2015-07-27T18:00:53","modified_gmt":"2015-07-27T16:00:53","slug":"army-conscription-may-return-in-south-africa-report","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/trending\/94301\/army-conscription-may-return-in-south-africa-report\/","title":{"rendered":"Army conscription may return in South Africa: report"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Young South Africans may be forced to attend a compulsory military programme as soon as 2016, according to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.news24.com\/SouthAfrica\/News\/The-SA-army-wants-youth-20150725\" target=\"_blank\">a report by the City Press<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>An ANC-led alliance has reportedly begun pushing for the return of military conscription in the country, in a bid to contain youth unemployment and also instill discipline, patriotism and volunteerism into young people from the ages of 18.<\/p>\n<p>South Africa ended military conscription in 1994 with the birth of democracy in the country.<\/p>\n<p>According to the City Press, however, plans are being made to\u00a0finalise details of a youth service programme that could see government sending young people, from the age of 18, to the army for military training.<\/p>\n<p>ANC secretary general Gwede Mantashe previously told the paper that he would support the reintroduction of conscription, saying the country moved away from the system &#8220;too soon&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe army is the most equipped structure that could deal with young people in a structured way. Actually, the best engineering capacity in the country is in the army. So that\u2019s what we should be thinking about,\u201d he was quoted saying.<\/p>\n<p>Although reintroducing conscription may go against the spirit of the Constitution, Mantashe said \u201cthe country must do what it needs to do for the country to work\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>The exercise would not have a primarily military aim, the paper said, but rather to encourage youth to formally volunteer and be of service to people, while gaining skills.<\/p>\n<p>The draft plan would still need to be approved by the deputy minister in the presidency, Buti Manamela, before it can be tabled in Cabinet for a final decision.<\/p>\n<p>The deadline for the full-roll out of the programme is June 2016, the City Press reported.<\/p>\n<h3 class=\"my-4\">More on military<\/h3>\n<p><strong><a title=\"Permalink to South Africa\u2019s military strength vs the world\" href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/general\/91324\/south-africas-military-strength-vs-the-world\/\" rel=\"bookmark\">South Africa\u2019s military strength vs the world<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong><a title=\"Permalink to The world\u2019s biggest military spenders\" href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/general\/85039\/the-worlds-biggest-military-spenders-2\/\" rel=\"bookmark\">The world\u2019s biggest military spenders<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Young South Africans may be forced to attend a compulsory military programme in the near future, according to a report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":91336,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[7757,26,5946,6245],"class_list":["post-94301","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-trending","tag-army","tag-headline","tag-military","tag-sandf"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94301","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=94301"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94301\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":94307,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94301\/revisions\/94307"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/91336"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=94301"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=94301"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=94301"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}