"He forgets that in our 18 years of democratic government, we have done things that they deliberately decided not to do," provincial secretary Lubabalo Oscar Mabuyane said in a statement.

"The situation of our economy is because they literally kicked black people out of the economy and society."

The African National Congress was reacting to earlier reports that De Klerk had blamed the ANC for the country's spiralling social and economic woes.

On Wednesday, during a speech to business leaders, De Klerk lambasted the wealth-redistribution policies of the ANC.

He reportedly said they would cause "social engineering in which people's prospects would once again be determined by race, rather than by individual merit and circumstances".

De Klerk acknowledged that some of the country's woes were inherited from apartheid, but argued that the ANC was failing to deal with them.

Mabuyane said De Klerk, a former apartheid leader with "blood dripping from his hands", could not lecture the ANC about economic choices it made.

"We will continue with the affirmative action, black economic empowerment programme and other economic development policies that continue to boost our economy," he said.

"The best thing that De Klerk can do is to keep quiet or try to encourage white South African companies to join the National Democratic Revolution by creating jobs, providing training opportunities and paying black people salaries equal to those of their coloured, Indian and white counterparts."