Speaking at the memorial lecture to honour the party's fourth president, Josiah Dube in Nyanga in the Cape Flats, Mantashe said the ANC of today and yesteryear could not be the same, the SABC said.

"The ANC is not dead, only a dead organisation remains static and it doesn't adapt and adjust," he is quoted as saying.

"If you want the ANC you joined some 40 years ago, you will not find it. You must adapt and adjust ANC to the current conditions. It is an organisation that is living. That is having the capacity to self-correct and cleans itself."

Mantashe also spoke on factionalism , saying it was the biggest threat to the African National Congress, the report said.

It was as big of a problem as it was in 1959 when the Pan Africanist Congress walked out of the ANC.

"The problem of factions is that they are narrow ...and intolerant. factions don't discuss politics, factions always discuss names."

On Tuesday, the ANC released its organisational renewal document aimed at addressing its weaknesses. The document identifies, among others, factionalism as one of the problems the ruling party wants to tackle.