Johannesburg - The ANC's 2014 election manifesto was a predictable laundry list of promises while it expected South Africans to conveniently forget past failures, Agang SA said on Sunday.
South Africans were also asked to forget unmet promises and the ruling party's habit of putting itself ahead of the national interest, Agang SA said in a statement.
“Can the ruling party be so tone deaf to the disbelief and distrust citizens have towards it that it expects us to believe, without reason, that it will be able to meet these promises any better than it has in the past?”
The manifesto, launched in Nelspruit, Mpumalanga on Saturday, was a mixed bag of old and new pledges.
President Jacob Zuma said the party would continue to focus on job creation, rural development, land reform, food security, education, health and fighting crime and corruption.
It was no secret that the majority of South Africa's poor were black, particularly women and those living in rural areas.
This situation would change, Zuma told African National Congress supporters at the Mbombela Stadium.
He said all citizens should share in the wealth of the country.
Zuma said the manifesto contained plans for addressing poverty and unemployment, with the economy taking centre stage.
Agang SA said the ANC had previously promised economic growth, infrastructure development, improved education, access to healthcare and halving unemployment by 2014.
“Yet we are confronted with questions about the usefulness of the matriculation qualification, failing public hospitals and the collapse of the healthcare system in the Eastern Cape,” the party said.
Infrastructure development was below par, the economy was static, the unemployment rate remained stubbornly high and the economy could not absorb the millions of unemployed nor the thousands of matriculants who finished schooling every year.
The ANC also regularly made promises that corruption would be curbed even though greed was symbolised by the thousands of public servants who continued to do business with the state on their own account.
President Jacob Zuma's Nkandla homestead also symbolised greed.
“What South Africans need is a government they can trust. Our country needs a growing economy that creates real jobs for all. We need quality education and training that can get our country working again,” Agang SA said.
“Enough is enough. We have had enough of promises over the last 20 years. We need a fresh start. Let us use our power to say in one voice that 20 years of promises is enough.” - Sapa