The future of the country will remain in jeopardy unless efforts are made to halt corruption, Zwelinzima Vavi, general secretary of the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu), said on Friday.

"Cosatu has for many years been concerned about corruption and we will continue to be concerned until we finally put an end to it," he told a Business Unity South Africa (Busa) anti-corruption forum in Sandton, Johannesburg.

Corruption threatened the very foundations of the country's democracy, Vavi said.

"Only three days ago our Minister of Finance Pravin Gordhan in his Medium Term Budget Policy Statement expressed concern about government tenders that were tainted by corruption."

Vavi said "it takes two" to embark on a corrupt deal - on the one side there were officials while on the other side there were corrupt business people.

It was however, a mistake to assume that there was corruption only in the public sector.

"The private sector is deeply implicated and millions have been lost in white collar crime."

Vavi said a "disturbing culture" had set in and had taken root "in society and in the movement" which threatened to erase democracy.

"But this is a culture that has been imported into our movement from the business sector.

"Capitalist culture praises those who accumulate the most and despises those who fail."

Business in South Africa meant the survival of the fittest and encompassed the "dog eat dog" idea as well as the "me first" sentiment.

"However, the workers say an injury to one is an injury to all. But in business they say an injury to one is an opportunity for another."

Vavi went on to attack the high salaries and bonuses of top executives as this made South Africa "the most unequal society on earth today".

He said wages had consistently declined as a percentage of gross domestic product (GDP).

"The figure in 1998 was 50% of GDP and in 2005 it was only 40% of GDP - all while profits rose in the same period."

Vavi said that fighting corruption was not only a moral imperative but also an issue of "social justice" in South Africa.

"As Gwede Mantashe [ANC secretary-general] has said, if we don't act against corruption the ANC will move only one way and that is down.

"Mantashe has now become an enemy in some quarters."

Those who wanted to be public servants had to live with their salaries.

"Or they must then choose to be business people - no one should be allowed to choose both and a simple declaration of interest is not enough."

Vavi said corruption was an insult to the memory of African National Congress leader Oliver Tambo who had spent 30 years in exile, as well as to former president Nelson Mandela who had spent 27 years in prison.

"In fact corruption is an insult to all our heroes and heroines," he said.