The African National Congress (ANC) needs a complete overhaul of its leadership, ANC veteran Winnie Madikizela-Mandela told journalists on Thursday.

"We cannot pretend we do not have problems and we cannot pretend things are not wrong. The kind of introspection we need would need a whole layer of fresh leadership, combined with elders who are left to revisit the question of the Freedom Charter."

Madikizela-Mandela said, as part of the ANC's National Executive Committee, she needed to also critique herself. She said an introspection was needed to go through all the stages of ANC presidents since 1994, to find out "where did we go so wrong".

"Were we right about propositional representation? Was the system we adopted the right one? Why do we have so much corruption everywhere you turn in institutions? The one word that is in everybody's lips is corruption. Who has the answer for that, it is the governing party."

She said the ANC needed to go into a retreat for a month to find answers to its wrongs.

"We cannot pretend there is nothing wrong. We are all worried about the weakness of the rand. We don't want to be in junk status."

She urged captains of industry to rally together and help government sort out the economic challenges faced by the country.

"Captains of industry must help us build the economy of the country. That cannot be done if we are disunited. That can only be done if we unite as South Africans."

Madikizela-Mandela was also critical of what was happening in Parliament.

"Parliament has been reduced to some fiasco. It's just a useless exercise that exposes the weaknesses of our country."