{"id":644855,"date":"2026-05-03T10:03:40","date_gmt":"2026-05-03T08:03:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/?p=644855"},"modified":"2026-05-03T11:51:12","modified_gmt":"2026-05-03T09:51:12","slug":"fake-ai-references-in-south-african-ai-policy-two-men-named-in-report","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/government\/644855-fake-ai-references-in-south-african-ai-policy-two-men-named-in-report.html","title":{"rendered":"Fake AI references in South African AI Policy: Two men named in report"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Two men under investigation for using AI-hallucinated references in the draft South Africa National Artificial Intelligence (AI) Policy<\/em> are reportedly seasoned Department of Communications officials.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to senior government sources who spoke to Sunday newspaper Rapport<\/a>, the focus of the investigation is on Dumisani Sondlo and Mlindi Mashologu.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sondlo is the department’s AI Policy head, while Mashologu is deputy director-general for digital society and economy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Both were appointed to the department before communications minister Solly Malatsi took office in July 2024. Sondlo has been working at the department since 2012, while Mashologu was appointed in 2020.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rapport said the two officials frequently posted on social media about their roles in developing the draft policy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The pair were reportedly given until Wednesday, 29 April, to explain the inclusion of made-up sources used in the policy’s reference list.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The fictitious information is strongly believed to be the output of a generative AI tool. The large language models powering these tools generate text based on patterns rather than verified facts. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The presence of AI-hallucinated sources raised questions about the reliability of the policy’s evidence base, the rigour of its review process, and the credibility of the recommendations it advanced.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Malatsi, who is a member of the Democratic Alliance, came under fire from the African National Congress (ANC) over the policy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a statement earlier this week, the ANC described the development as a “catastrophic” failure of critical thinking and accountability at the highest levels of departmental leadership.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

ANC spokesperson on Communications and Digital Technologies, Shaik Subrathie, gave a list of demands to address the matter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These included that Malatsi must be summoned to appear before Parliament to explain the circumstances that led to the policy’s drafting and gazetting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The ANC also demanded that Malatsi give Parliament a full account of the policy’s internal review process and name the officials responsible for drafting and quality assurance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The party’s statement did not acknowledge that ANC members in Cabinet and President Cyril Ramaphosa also approved the policy before it was gazetted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Two unnamed officials suspended<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
Solly Malatsi, Minister of Communications and Digital Technologies<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Malatsi withdrew the policy<\/a> on Sunday, 26 April 2026 after News24 published<\/a> the findings of its investigation into the document’s reference list.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That came after Article One sent a letter to the minister<\/a> listing six fictitious sources in the policy it believed were likely generated by AI.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the days that followed, Malatsi apologised for the blunder<\/a> and promised that there would be consequences for those found responsible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“It should not have happened. This is a massive embarrassment to the department and the government,” Malatsi told SABC News in an interview.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“It just exposes the irony inasmuch as we were in the process of developing a policy that will also have a package of guidelines around the responsible use of AI.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He declined to say<\/a> whether any officials would be fired over the issue as he did not want to influence the outcome of the department’s investigations into the matter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On Thursday, 30 April, the department’s director-general, Nonqubela Jordan-Dyani, confirmed two officials were put on preliminary suspension<\/a> pending the investigation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was unclear whether these officials were Mashologu and Sondlo. MyBroadband asked the two officials and the department for comment, but did not immediately receive feedback.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Home Affairs also recently suspended<\/a> two officials after News24 discovered over 100 fake references<\/a> in the list of sources in its Revised White Paper on Citizenship, Immigration, and Refugees<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In that case, the information was not cited in the body of the text, and Home Affairs argued the paper continued to accurately reflect the government’s position on the proposed policy reforms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“These measures are not materially affected by the apparent AI hallucinations contained in the standalone reference list,” it said.

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The two men allegedly under investigation for using AI-hallucinated references in South Africa’s proposed National Artificial Intelligence (AI) Policy are seasoned Department of Communications and Digital Technologies officials.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":341042,"featured_media":644857,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[92837,18668],"tags":[86631,35793,104226,66538,104425,104966,1703,104965,104964,104967,76862],"class_list":["post-644855","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ai","category-government","tag-ai-regulation","tag-artificial-intelligence-ai","tag-dcdt","tag-department-of-communications-and-digital-technologies-dcdt","tag-draft-national-ai-policy","tag-dumisani-sondlo","tag-home-affairs","tag-mlindi-mashologu","tag-national-draft-artificial-intelligence-ai-policy","tag-nonqubela-jordan-dyani","tag-solly-malatsi"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/644855"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/341042"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=644855"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/644855\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":644875,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/644855\/revisions\/644875"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/644857"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=644855"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=644855"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=644855"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}