THE ANC yesterday refused to be drawn into a public spat with Cosatu general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi, saying it would not engage him via the media.

"There are alliance structures where Vavi can raise whatever issue that he believes needs to be debated or rectified in the ANC," said ANC spokesperson Brian Sokutu.

Sokutu was responding to Vavi's statement that corruption and self-enrichment in the ANC could push voters into the DA.

Vavi also warned that the scourge of corruption in government was turning South Africa into a predatory state.

"If we do not do something about corruption we will find ourselves in a predatory state, where the social order of feeding will be as it is alleged in Angola and Kenya.

"Where the first family becomes the first to feed, followed by the cabinet and provincial leadership and our people come last to find absolutely nothing - not even bones," Vavi told delegates at a Numsa bargaining conference in Johannesburg this week.

Last year Vavi sounded the same warning about South Africa becoming a predatory state.

This was after the ArcelorMittal multi-billion deal in which family members and friends of President Jacob Zuma controversially received millions of rands worth of shares in the valuable Sishen mine.

Vavi has said if the former ANC president Oliver Tambo was still alive, the movement would not have taken the direction it has .

"Politics are dying, individualism and greed are on the rise," he said.

Expressions of concern about how the new political elites are using their positions to benefit economically have increased in recent months.

Addressing the crowd during the launch of the ANC local government manifesto in the North West in February, ANC Youth League leader Julius Malema said: "When families are exploiting the resources of this country and are enriching themselves in the name of freedom, when those in political office abuse their power to benefit friends, the youth must rise in defence of the ANC."