Mon séjour en Afrique du Sud (Cape Town)

Labour Minister Membathisi Mdladlana’s idea of national service would neither instil discipline nor give young people skills required in the job market after they had completed their service in the “under-funded” SANDF.

This is according to Len le Roux, the defence sector head of the Institute for Security Studies.

“It must also be questioned whether the SANDF is the right vehicle to address the problems on unemployment, crime and indiscipline.”

His comments come after Mdladlana said the military service would help to instill discipline among the youth.

“But as any form of national service could be for only a limited period of time, the question is, what happens to them afterwards?

“National service will do nothing for job creation in the private sector and, when their period of service is done, these same youths, now a year or two older, will be back on the streets unemployed,” he said.

What was needed in South Africa was not for the government to become the principal trainer and employer of the youth, but to create the conditions for the private sector to flourish and generate jobs so that young South Africans could rise to the challenge and make South Africa the great country it could be, said Le Roux.

Whereas the government was responsible for creating conditions conducive to economic growth, the primary responsibility for job creation rested with the private sector.

“If a young person has not been taught discipline at home and at school over a period of some 18 years, what effect would military training have on him or her? If they are back on the streets with no employment prospects, will they not revert to crime as the only means of survival?

“Are we not simply passing the responsibility for disciplining our youth from our parents and schools to the military?”

On the crime issue, Le Roux said it was interesting to note that the government was closing down the SANDF territorial reserve forces, the so-called Commandos, which had always played a supportive role to the police.

The reason was given as “removing the SANDF from policing tasks as this was unconstitutional”.

The SANDF, which was doing a good job in Africa in support of South Africa’s national interests and obligations despite serious underfunding and a near total lack of support from society, did not need national service to bolster its ranks, he said.

The SANDF had a voluntary short service system, the Military Skills Development System, feeding its personnel requirements.

Le Roux proposed that the government should align its budget with stated policy.

Since the approval of the White Paper on Defence (1996) and the Defence Review (1998) the SANDF had been consistently under-funded to maintain its approved force design and execute its assigned tasks, Le Roux said.