{"id":649897,"date":"2026-05-26T13:07:35","date_gmt":"2026-05-26T11:07:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/?p=649897"},"modified":"2026-05-26T13:13:49","modified_gmt":"2026-05-26T11:13:49","slug":"deadline-to-fix-south-africas-botched-ai-policy-announced","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/government\/649897-deadline-to-fix-south-africas-botched-ai-policy-announced.html","title":{"rendered":"Deadline to fix South Africa’s botched AI policy announced"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The Department of Communications and Digital Technologies has set January 2027 as the month in which its next and final draft of the national AI policy will be published.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It said the policy would only be published after a lengthy review process and after a panel of experts’ report containing recommendations is considered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Communications minister Solly Malatsi was in Parliament on Tuesday to present the official rationale for withdrawing South Africa’s previous draft national AI policy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In April, the department officially withdrew the draft policy after it was revealed that AI-hallucinated sources were included in its list of references.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The subsequent scandal led to the precautionary suspension of two department officials, who stand accused of the irresponsible use of generative AI in drafting the policy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Malatsi told the Portfolio Committee on Communications and Digital Technologies that the department had no idea that AI hallucinated information was in the policy until the News24 expos\u00e9.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“We immediately internally got in touch with the Director-General and officials who were working on the policy to establish the veracity of the allegations,” he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Through our internal processes, we did not pick up issues with internal processes up until they were exposed.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He said the draft policy was officially withdrawn to protect the integrity of the policy development process and to address “the stain it caused.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After that, the department launched an internal investigation to determine the sequence of events leading to the incident.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“As things evolved, we discovered that there was a massive oversight and non-disclosure around the use of AI in the formulation of the policy,” he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Malatsi said the department then began fixing some of the fundamental errors that led to the oversight. “We went and sought the skills of experts in the AI field, governance and academia,” he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The minister announced the appointment of a panel of independent AI experts during a May departmental budget speech. He said the experts would assist in reviewing the policy before publishing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Prof. Benjamin Rosman, director of the Wits MIND institute and one of the country’s foremost AI researchers, was selected to chair the panel<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The panel comprised high-level academics, legal experts, cybersecurity experts, a privacy, data, and cyberlaw expert, and a commissioner of the National Planning Commission.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Duties of the expert review panel on the Draft National AI Policy<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
Prof. Benjamin Rosman, chair of the expert review panel for South Africa’s Draft National AI Policy<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Alongside reviewing the draft AI policy, the panel would also assess the withdrawn draft, essentially suggesting what should be kept in the revised policy and what should be scrapped.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Malatsi said that the withdrawn draft policy was of a reasonable size and had not been widely contested, and that it would serve as a basis for drafting the final policy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The experts will also recommend verified, published sources to replace fictitious citations and to strengthen the evidence base for the policy’s positions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They will also provide written advice to the minister’s specific questions around AI and the policy document itself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The panel will then review the draft policy document at the end of the drafting phase before issuing a final advisory opinion on whether the document reflects the panel’s recommendations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to the minister’s presentation, this process will begin in May 2026 and conclude in October 2026, when the draft will be sent to Cabinet for final approval.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“The overall review process is designed to allow the revised policy documents to be submitted to Cabinet by November 2026, with a target publication date for public comment of January 2027,” it said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

An internal team from the department will assist with drafting and support the advisory panel. “It is important that the department still takes a prominent role in the process of the finalisation of the policy.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Department officials are set to meet with the panel of experts in the next couple of weeks to begin the review process and start redrafting South Africa’s National AI policy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Department of Communications and Digital Technologies revealed when South Africans can expect the new hallucination-free version of the Draft National AI Policy will be published. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":341213,"featured_media":647861,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[92837,18668],"tags":[27887,104785,76860,104425,76862,104857],"class_list":["post-649897","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ai","category-government","tag-ai","tag-benjamin-rosman","tag-department-of-communications-and-digital-technologies","tag-draft-national-ai-policy","tag-solly-malatsi","tag-wits-mind-institute"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/649897"}],"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\/341213"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=649897"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/649897\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":649925,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/649897\/revisions\/649925"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/647861"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=649897"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=649897"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=649897"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}