The controversy has now delayed the country’s long-awaited AI framework until January 2027, exposing the risks governments face as they race to regulate a technology that is evolving faster than many institutions can manage.
The incident is significant far beyond South Africa.
Across the world, governments are scrambling to build rules around generative AI as the technology reshapes finance, healthcare, education, cybersecurity, manufacturing and public administration.
But South Africa’s policy collapse now shows a growing global problem: authorities trying to govern AI are increasingly vulnerable to the same technology’s flaws, including hallucinations, fabricated information and weak verification systems.
The original policy draft, approved by Cabinet in March and published for public comment in April, was designed to position South Africa as a continental leader in AI innovation while addressing concerns around ethics, jobs, inequality, privacy and governance.
Instead, the process unravelled after local media outlet News24 reported that several academic references cited in the document either did not exist or were falsely attributed to journals that had never published the work.
Communications Minister Solly Malatsi admitted before parliament on Tuesday that the department failed to detect the problems before they became public.
“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,” Malatsi told lawmakers.
He described the incident as a “massive oversight” and acknowledged that there had been inadequate disclosure regarding the use of AI tools during the drafting process.
The fallout has triggered a broader credibility crisis inside government.
Two officials have been placed on precautionary suspension pending an investigation, while Director-General Nonkqubela Jordan-Dyani described the incident as “highly regrettable” and said withdrawing the document was necessary to restore public confidence.
The delay comes at a delicate moment for Africa’s largest industrial economy, which has been trying to position itself as a major digital innovation centre amid intensifying global AI competition between the United States, China and Europe.
South Africa already hosts some of the continent’s biggest banks, telecom companies and technology firms, many of which are rapidly deploying AI-powered tools for fraud detection, customer service automation, cybersecurity and financial analytics.
Yet the country still lacks a formal national AI governance framework.
That gap is becoming increasingly important as African governments face mounting pressure to create rules around data protection, algorithmic bias, misinformation, labour disruption and AI-driven surveillance.
The scandal also underscores a wider institutional challenge facing many African governments: regulating advanced technologies while still building technical expertise and oversight capacity inside public institutions.
To rebuild confidence, the Department of Communications and Digital Technologies has appointed a seven-member independent review panel to overhaul the withdrawn framework.
The panel is chaired by Benjamin Rosman and includes leading experts in AI research, governance, cybersecurity and digital law, including Vukosi Marivate, Alison Gillwald, cybersecurity specialist Jabu Mtsweni and cyber lawyer Lufuno Tshikalange.
The review panel is expected to audit the document, remove problematic sections, replace flawed citations and strengthen governance standards around AI use in future policy drafting.
According to acting deputy director-general Jeanette Morwane, the revised framework is expected to return to Cabinet by November 2026 before being reopened for public consultation in January 2027.
The delay leaves South Africa without a formal AI policy at a time when other global powers are moving aggressively.
The European Union’s AI Act is already setting global compliance standards, while the United States, China, Britain and the Gulf states are pouring billions of dollars into AI infrastructure, regulation and talent development.
For South Africa, the scandal has become more than a policy embarrassment. It is now a warning about the governance risks emerging in the AI era, especially for countries trying to balance innovation, regulation and institutional credibility at the same time.
