Pretoria: The ANC says "the cancer" of corruption, conflict of interest, greed and erosion of morality are paralysing and dividing the organisation.

In a report on Lead us not into temptation: the challenge of renewing our revolutionary ethics, ANC secretary-general Kgalema Motlanthe has said the ruling party should examine the question of senior officials leaving the public service through a revolving door into the private sectors.

"Our position as the ruling party makes us particularly susceptible," he said, speaking on the first day of the ANC's National General Council meeting here.

"Professionals in the public service are chosen because of their skills and talents. When their time in public service has come to an end, it is only natural that they seek to continue to work in spheres of society with which they are most familiar and best-equipped to contribute.

"But these are the circumstances that create fertile ground for corruption and graft. How can we act to ensure that those exiting the public service ... are prevented from using government resources to invest in their personal fortunes in later life?"

Motlanthe also questioned the relationship between ANC members in private business and their friends in government.

"Those who engage in business within our ranks should do so openly and in a transparent manner. Insidious practices such as sleeping partners should be avoided.

"Leaving the public service to conduct private business after having placed reliable partners in leadership positions in the public service is a malpractice that is hard to prove, but clearly prevalent.

"We should ask, whenever a public servant or representative leaves office and opens a business in the same line of work, 'Shouldn't there be an automatic review by a dedicated government agency to eliminate ... suspicion and insinuations?' "

In reviewing ANC structures, the organisation's leaders had identified the "erosion of revolutionary morality that has characterised our movement for decades".

"The central challenge facing the ANC is to address the problems that arise from our cadres' susceptibility to moral decay, occasioned by the struggle for the control of and access to resources. All the paralysis in our programmes, all the divisions in our structures are in one way or another a consequence of this cancer in our midst."

He said it was understandable for black people to accumulate wealth after having been denied opportunities under apartheid.

"The problem (is) that, in our efforts to make up for the debilitating weight of apartheid, many of us appear only too quick to sacrifice the moral and ethical standards that have characterised our movement.

"Moral degeneration, linked to the accumulation and control over resources, is not a consequence we can accept, since it threatens to extinguish the torch our people carried for so long."

With unemployment high, people sought government jobs, leading to "acute consequences" of nepotism and corruption.

Motlanthe's comments come in the wake of renewed calls for a cooling-off period for public servants and elected public officials who wish to move into parallel fields in the private sector.

With acknowledgements to Moshoeshoe Monare and the Cape Times.