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South Africa has postponed the rollout of its long-anticipated national artificial intelligence (AI) policy to January 2027 after withdrawing an earlier draft over concerns involving fabricated academic citations, raising fresh questions about the use of generative AI in public policymaking.
The delay has intensified scrutiny around governance standards, institutional oversight, and the credibility of AI-driven policy development as governments increasingly turn to emerging technologies in decision-making processes.
A delegation from the Department of Communications and Digital Technologies, led by Communications Minister Solly Malatsi, briefed parliament on renewed efforts to restore confidence in the country’s AI governance framework following what officials described as a significant credibility setback.
South Africa had positioned itself to become a leading voice in AI regulation and innovation across the continent. However, the collapse of the initial draft policy has exposed broader risks associated with overreliance on generative AI tools, weak internal quality controls, and the difficulty of regulating a rapidly evolving technology already transforming business operations and public services.
The original policy draft, approved by Cabinet in March and published in April for public consultation, was withdrawn after reports revealed that several academic references cited in the document were either fabricated or incorrectly attributed to journals that had not published the referenced work.
Addressing lawmakers, Malatsi acknowledged shortcomings in the department’s review process, admitting officials failed to identify the issues before they were exposed publicly.
“The department had not picked up that there were issues with the references in the draft policy document before the events were exposed in news reports,” he said.
The minister disclosed that two government officials had since been suspended following the controversy, which he said had negatively impacted both the department’s reputation and broader government credibility in shaping digital policy.
“It was then that we got the responses to protect the integrity of the policy development process and, obviously, the stain that it has caused not just on the department but also on the government’s overall process of formulating and finalising policy,” Malatsi added.
In response, the department says it is strengthening internal review processes and introducing more responsible safeguards around the use of AI tools in policy development to prevent similar incidents.
On May 14, the government appointed an independent review panel to rebuild the withdrawn framework and recommend revisions ahead of a planned resubmission to Cabinet later this year.
The panel will be chaired by Benjamin Rosman of the Machine Intelligence and Neural Discovery Institute at the University of the Witwatersrand. Other members include AI researcher Vukosi Marivate, digital policy expert Alison Gillwald, legal specialist Heather Irvine, alongside experts in cybersecurity, governance, and digital law.
With the revised framework now expected to enter public consultation in January 2027, South Africa remains without a formal national AI policy at a time when both government agencies and private sector organisations are accelerating adoption of AI-powered technologies.
The delay underscores a growing challenge facing policymakers globally: how to regulate artificial intelligence effectively while ensuring governance systems evolve quickly enough to keep pace with technological change.
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