{"id":652463,"date":"2026-06-06T17:01:03","date_gmt":"2026-06-06T15:01:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/?p=652463"},"modified":"2026-06-06T21:19:17","modified_gmt":"2026-06-06T19:19:17","slug":"dream-team-to-fix-ai-policy-blunder-in-south-africa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/government\/652463-dream-team-to-fix-ai-policy-blunder-in-south-africa.html","title":{"rendered":"Dream team to fix AI policy blunder in South Africa"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Communications Minister Solly Malatsi personally contacted South African experts he wanted to lead the review of the upcoming draft national AI policy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Benjamin Rosman, a University of the Witwatersrand professor and chair of the National AI Policy expert review panel, told MyBroadband the minister handpicked the committee’s members.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This included Malatsi personally contacting the seven people who would constitute the committee to ask whether they wanted to take part.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rosman will chair the panel. He is a professor in the School of Computer Science and Applied Mathematics at Wits and has been involved in some of the country’s most notable AI research.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This included involvement in Lelapa AI and the running of the Robotics, Autonomous Intelligence and Learning (RAIL) Laboratory at Wits, dedicated to science in AI systems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He is also the head of the Wits MIND institute, which is dedicated to AI research in South Africa. In 2025, the institute received R17.5 million in research grants from Google.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The other panellists include leaders in their fields across AI research, law, governance, and cybersecurity, in a bid to cover as many of the technology’s potential implications as possible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rosman will be joined by Prof. Vukosi Marivate, co-founder of Lelapa AI, the Deep Learning Indaba, and Professor of Computer Science at the University of Pretoria.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Prof. Alison Gillwald, executive director of research at ICT Africa and adjunct professor at the University of Cape Town, also joined the committee.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Heather Irvine, a competition law specialist, and Dr Tshepo Feela, a commissioner at the National Planning Commission, were added to cover the legal aspects.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Finally, Dr Jabu Mtsweni, head of Information and Cybersecurity at the CSIR, and advocate Lufuno Tshikalange, a legal professional specialising in data privacy and cyberlaw, completed the panel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“It was a hand-chosen group of people. The fact that people come from different backgrounds is something I always find really exciting,” said Rosman.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“I feel it is plausible that these are people who feel strongly about doing their bit to help the country, so I think it should be a very interesting engagement.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Minister wants to get it right this time<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
Solly Malatsi, Minister of Communications and Digital Technologies<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Malatsi expressed to Rosman how much the scandal around the revelation of AI-hallucinated sources in the withdrawn draft policy personally affected him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“He said that this had been a very difficult, embarrassing moment, and they really wanted to make sure that they did it right,” he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“I was very impressed by the way he spoke about how he wants this to succeed and the importance of this policy.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a presentation to Parliament in May, Malatsi revealed that two departmental officials were placed on precautionary suspension following the scandal.<\/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,” the minister 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

In the presentation, he said that the expert panel would assist in reviewing the policy before publication, ahead of the draft receiving final sign-off from cabinet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, as it stands, Rosman was not fully aware of the scope of the panellists and how much final influence their advice would have on the upcoming regulations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“We have been told that we are not writing the policy; we are giving expert advisory on the policy,” he said. The policy is due in January 2027.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“In the terms of reference, it states that they are not obligated to do everything we say. We are obviously not completely aware of all the other constraints that are happening politically.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He said that the difficulty with an AI policy to govern regulations for a sovereign state was that the field and the technology were broad and continually advancing and changing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“What I am going to be trying to think about is the core principles that are important, which might not be underpinning the policy, but at least underpinning the way we are thinking and giving advice,” he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“I will try to use that to address any disagreements between the academics and also make sure that the advice we are giving is not just a snapshot of what the technology looks like today.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Draft AI policy expert panel<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
Prof. Ben Rosman<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
Dr Tshepo Feela<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
Dr Jabu Mtsweni<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
Prof. Vukosi Marivate<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
Prof. Alison Gillwald<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
Advocate Lufuno Tshikalange<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
Heather Irvine<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Minister Solly Malatsi hand-picked a panel of experts to lead the review of South Africa’s new draft National AI policy. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":341213,"featured_media":652473,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18668],"tags":[27887,104785,237,104425,76862,30514],"class_list":["post-652463","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-government","tag-ai","tag-benjamin-rosman","tag-department-of-communications","tag-draft-national-ai-policy","tag-solly-malatsi","tag-university-of-the-witwatersrand"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/652463"}],"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=652463"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/652463\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":652573,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/652463\/revisions\/652573"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/652473"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=652463"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=652463"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=652463"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}