South Africa Delays AI Policy to 2027 After Fake References Scandal

South Africa has delayed its national artificial intelligence (AI) policy to January 2027 after officials withdrew a draft that contained fabricated academic references. 

The decision comes after months of questions about how the document was prepared and checked before publication.

Cabinet approved the draft policy in March 2026, and government published it in April for public comment.

Questions emerged soon after, when media reports found that several citations did not exist or pointed to journals that never published the work. The findings forced a formal withdrawal of the document on 26 April 2026.

Minister of Communications and Digital Technologies Solly Malatsi told Parliament that the department missed the problems before they became public.

He said, “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,”

Two officials involved in drafting and checking the document have since been suspended. The department also admitted gaps in its internal review process, especially around how sources were verified before publication.

Malatsi said the government moved to contain the damage after the issue became public. He stated, “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,”

On 14 May 2026, the government appointed an independent panel to rebuild the policy framework. The group is chaired by Professor Benjamin Rosman of the Machine Intelligence and Neural Discovery Institute at the University of the Witwatersrand.

It includes Professor Vukosi Marivate, Professor Alison Gillwald, Heather Irvine, Dr Tshepo Feela, cybersecurity specialist Jabu Mtsweni, and cyber lawyer Lufuno Tshikalange.

Officials expect the revised framework to go back for public comment in January 2027. Until then, South Africa will remain without a formal national AI policy, even as both government and private firms continue to deploy AI systems in daily operations.

The episode has led to queries about oversight in policy development and the growing use of generative AI in official work.

It also places South Africa in a tighter race with countries such as Kenya and Nigeria, which are advancing their own national AI strategies.

Attention has currently shifted to whether the new panel can restore confidence and produce a framework that holds up to standards, both locally and across the continent.

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