The ANC's annual birthday celebrations, to be held this weekend, are much ado about nothing, metalworkers' union Numsa said on Wednesday.
"Expect nothing new from the ANC's January 8 statement. The ANC has run out of ideas, and morals," it said in a statement.
The ANC would celebrate its 105th birthday at Orlando Stadium on Sunday. President Jacob Zuma was expected to deliver the national executive committee's statement on difficulties facing the party and priorities for the new year.
However Numsa, which was expelled from the ANC-aligned trade union Cosatu in November 2015, said the event had lost meaning and relevance.
It said the ANC had no concrete socialist plans to solve deepening inequality and joblessness and the over-burdening of the workers through "slave wages".
It blamed the ANC's economic policies for the high unemployment rate, deepening poverty, and an apartheid economic structure which it said was still intact 22 years after democracy.
'Death throes of a once great liberation movement'
"What we will be witnessing on Sunday are the death throes of a once great liberation movement. The ANC's abandonment of the Freedom Charter has destroyed the soul of the organisation."
Numsa said the 2016 #FeesMustFall protests were the "ANC's failure laid bare". Its response to the crisis was reminiscent of the apartheid government.
Numsa said it would be in the front line of student protests in 2017, which it said would commence in earnest in a few weeks.
"There is nothing to suggest that there will be less confrontation and violence," Numsa said.
"Instead of free, decolonised and quality education, the ANC is offering the poor more debt through interest bearing loans. Dare we remind everyone that former banker and member of the elite Sizwe Nxasana is the new head of the National Student Financial Aid Scheme."
It called Higher Education Minister Blade Nzimande a "dubious socialist" and "yellow communist" for condemning the student protests.
Numsa rejected the Fees Commission, which is investigating the feasibility of free higher education, and said a "truly revolutional organisation" would focus more on implementing this. -- News24Wire