MINISTER for Performance and Evaluation Collins Chabane has warned ANC members to behave or else they would be disciplined.

He was speaking at the funeral of poet and political activist Tendamudzimu Robert Ratshitanga on Saturday.

Chabane told thousands of mourners at Tshidimbini, outside Thohoyandou, that the ANC had emerged stronger after the national general council in Durban this past week, was recruiting members with added vigour and would take the issues of discipline seriously.

He said he had worked with Ratshitanga when the first branches of the ANC were started in Limpopo.

"All the branches that you see now were started by the late Ratshitanga and Pharephare Motupi," he said.

He said they had no cars, no money then and used public transport for ANC work.

Chabane said he would remember Ratshitanga as a quiet person who was very principled and never fought for a position.

Limpopo Premier Cassel Mathale said President Jacob Zuma had done a good job by according Ratshitanga an official provincial government funeral.

"Although at the time of his death he was just a chief whip of a municipality, Ratshitanga was not an ordinary man. The man worked hard to get the country where it is.

"He was a freedom fighter and went on to be an MP, but when the ANC requested him to come to the municipality he did not complain."

Apart from being a freedom fighter, Ratshitanga wrote many books, some of which he wrote while in jail.

In 1988 one of his books, Masase, won the CNA literature award. This happened while he was in prison serving a five-year term for harbouring guerrillas. In 1986 his book, Vhadzimu vha Tshenuwa, was prescribed for Grade 12 pupils.

Ratshitanga died last week, aged 70, after a short illness.