In an ironic turn of events, the Draft National Artificial Intelligence (AI) Policy for South Africa was formally withdrawn on Sunday, April 26, 2026, by the Minister of Communications and Digital Technologies, Solly Malatsi.  The withdrawal followed a scandal involving what has been termed a "fictitious AI policy framework," where it was discovered that the document cited academic sources and journal articles that do not exist. Mondli Makhanya spoke to Prof Stella Bvuma, Director of the School of Consumer Intelligence and Information Systems at UJ.