The ANC denied that its spokesperson Carl Niehaus had tendered his resignation after a newspaper report detailing alleged financial impropriety, spokesperson Jessie Duarte said on Friday.

"It's not true. We have heard this rumour all morning long," she said.

The Mail & Guardian newspaper reported that he was swamped with debt and efforts to cope had allegedly included forging signatures of senior Gauteng government officials on a letter that may have secured him a loan from a property businessman.

An emotional Niehaus told radio station SAFM: "I have written a message this morning [Friday] to the secretary general and the treasury general of the ANC and I have offered my resignation.

"I've always been employed by the ANC and I've always accepted the discipline of the ANC. The ANC is not an organisation for me which I consider just to be an organisation. It is my family. It is the organisation I love and I will never do anything deliberately to damage this organisation and I will always accept its discipline."

Duarte said they were looking into the matter, but her immediate reaction to the article was that it contained inaccuracies.

She said it was untrue that she was unhappy about Niehaus's appointment to the team of spokespeople that would lead the party through the forthcoming elections.

"This is a person I have known for 32 years... we work well together, we always have... I have great respect for him".

Niehaus was not immediately available for further comment.