Overview
- South Africa’s communications ministry withdrew the draft National AI Policy on Sunday after an internal check confirmed fake academic citations in its references.
- Khusela Diko, who leads Parliament’s communications committee, said Minister Solly Malatsi will be called to explain the lapse and that the committee has two formal complaints to process.
- The Department of Home Affairs suspended two senior officials on Thursday after finding fabricated sources in the reference list of a cabinet‑approved immigration white paper, and it hired two law firms to run discipline and to review policy documents produced since November 30, 2022.
- News24 first found at least six nonexistent sources among 67 citations in the AI policy draft, and editors at journals including the South African Journal of Philosophy, AI & Society and the Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy confirmed the cited articles do not exist.
- The withdrawn draft proposed a national AI commission, an ethics board and a regulator with tax breaks and grants, and experts now call for a transparent rewrite that sets clear rules for how generative AI is used in public documents and how information is verified.