The ANC has rapped finance minister Tito Mboweni and Ekurhuleni mayor Mzwandile Masina over the knuckles for  engaging in a public spat, urging them to respect the party's conference resolutions.

The pair were embroiled in a nasty Twitter war of words after Mboweni  tweeted on Tuesday that he was convinced that the party’s resolution on the Reserve Bank was a wrong one.

Masina  took exception to Mboweni's comments, saying “if the branches are still a basic unit of the organisation, they need to correct" Mboweni's arrogance”.

The ANC resolved at its 2017 Nasrec conference that the central bank should be nationalized and that its mandate must be expanded to take into consideration job creation and eradicating poverty.

In a statement, issued on Wednesday afternoon, the party said it was “concerned about the public posture taken by Comrade Tito Mboweni in relation to resolutions and policy positions of the ANC, specifically on the South  African Reserve Bank (SARB).”

"It is our view that Comrade Tito should act with care and be cautious at all times on matters of policy given his position as the Minister of Finance, including subjecting himself to the overall Communications Protocols of the African National Congress," spokesperson Pule Mabe  said. 

“Those who serve in leadership structures of our movement, especially within the National Executive Committee; (NEC), the highest decision-making body in between conferences, are expected at all times to uphold and defend resolutions of the ANC on public platforms."

The party said the "bar placed on national leaders of our glorious movement is even much higher as they are collective custodians of democratic centralism."

"Elected leaders of the ANC are therefore not freelancers and remain bound by the overall prescripts of our organizational values and discipline in pursuance of the National Democratic Revolution," Mabe added.

“The leadership of the ANC is expected to appreciate the need to articulate a consistent, coherent and unifying message on policy positions, the statement stated.

"The character of our organization confers on the membership the authority to determine policy and to hold the leadership accountable. Only the national conference has the right and power to review, ratify, alter or rescind any decision taken by any of the constituent structures, committees or officials of the organization."

The party called on all its members  to take part in the discussion, formulation and implementation of the policies of the ANC through appropriate internal platforms.

"Any public statement by a Leader of the ANC questioning the wisdom of a national conference outside formal structures have the potential to create confusion within and outside the organization," Mabe said.

"On the South African Reserve Bank, the NEC has already reaffirmed a conference resolution to return the sovereignty of this important national institution to the people of South Africa as a whole."