The department of communications & digital technologies has placed two officials on precautionary suspension over the now-withdrawn draft national artificial intelligence policy – the second South African government department in less than a week to suspend staff over fabricated AI-generated references in a cabinet-approved document.
The suspensions, with immediate effect, were announced in a statement issued over the weekend by communications department director-general Nonkqubela Jordan-Dyani.
She said the action had been taken pending the ongoing investigation into the draft policy, which was withdrawn from public consultation after News24 revealed that several of its academic citations were fictitious – AI “hallucinations” attributed to real journals and to authors who had never written on the topics in question.
“The irresponsible use of AI tools compromised the integrity of the policy document,” Jordan-Dyani said in the statement. “This prompted an internal review to determine the facts. This initial step is part of our commitment to accountability.”
The two officials were not named.
Communications minister Solly Malatsi withdrew the draft policy last Sunday and pledged “consequence management” for those responsible for drafting and quality assurance, calling the episode an “unacceptable lapse” that proved why “vigilant human oversight over the use of AI is critical”. Cabinet approved the policy on 25 March, and it was gazetted for public comment on 10 April.
Home affairs parallel
The suspensions came after the department of home affairs took similar action over a different cabinet-approved policy document. Home affairs minister Leon Schreiber’s department announced last Thursday that it had suspended two officials after AI hallucinations were found in the reference list appended to the revised white paper on citizenship, immigration and refugee protection.
Read: Schreiber suspends home affairs officials over fake AI references
The two cases in quick succession have raised questions about how widely the unchecked use of generative AI tools has taken hold in South Africa’s policymaking machinery. – (c) 2026 NewsCentral Media
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