President Jacob Zuma on Wednesday dismissed calls to probe allegations of tender fraud by African National Congress Youth League (ANCYL) leader Julius Malema, saying that he did not know the facts and would not act without evidence of wrongdoing.

"I don't have the details of what happened with this tender. Is what is being alleged true?" he asked Members of Parliament (MPs) during question time in the National Assembly.

Congress of the People (Cope) youth leader Anele Mda asked Zuma whether he would investigate allegations that SGL Engineering Projects, which is co-owned by Malema, raked in R140-million in government tenders in Limpopo in the past two years.

Zuma responded that he could not proceed on the basis of press reports.

"Certainly I will act where there is corruption, but certainly I will act with regard to the information before me. I think if there is information, concrete information on what has happened, I think let it come to government," he said.

"I'm not certain that you can follow every story in the newspaper as government.

"The newspapers don't say 'here is this matter', they give the story for everybody to read. And the story could be put in every direction. Other people deny the fact.

"Now somebody has to go to the police and say 'here is the case', I'm putting the case, deal with it... If you say 'President investigate this as a specific issue', I'm saying provide information to help us to do so. What is the difficulty to help us?"

Zuma added that if there was a problem, he was sure the Limpopo government would "be dealing with it".

He said that the inter-ministerial committee on corruption was looking at ways to improve the tender process, but added that problems did not stem from government policy, but rather arose from contractors' failure to comply with the rules.

"It must be noted, however, that the problem with the tender fraud does not arise out of lack of transparency, but from lack of compliance with otherwise transparent policies."

Other opposition MPs also targeted the ANCYL president, with the Democratic Alliance's (DA's) Dion George asking whether he would be called into line with the State's policy on nationalisation.

Zuma dismissed that notion as well, inviting opposition MPs to debate Malema's calls to nationalise mines.

"We have dealt with this question very sufficiently, that government policy is not nationalisation, and this is what we have explained as well when we were in great Britain and there is no confusion," Zuma said.

"We separated in our last discussion the question of the policy and the issue of South Africans whether they belong to the ANC Youth League or whoever to raise their questions, their feelings about issues.

"We cannot [stop] people from raising certain issues and I said that was the issue before, that if you talked about nationalisation you go to Robben Island.

"Those who hold different views as you do, engage Julius Malema. Prove to him that he is wrong. He is talking in the media, you talk to the media as well.

"Engage him and engage the country to say Malema is wrong... It is a public debate, debate with Julius Malema."

The response echoed comments by the President in February in his reply to the debate on his state of the nation address.

Malema has dismissed reports that he was getting rich on State tenders as "lies" and claimed he resigned from SGL two years ago.

He is also under pressure for allegedly failing to pay tax. A call by the Congress os South African Trade Unions for lifestyle audits of politicians who seemed to live beyond their means was partly aimed at him.

It was rejected by Zuma.

On Friday, the President appeared to call Malema to order with a warning to the ANCYL to stop attacks on ANC secretary-general Gwede Mantashe and Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan.

Malema later told the media that the Youth League would not be cowed.