Rabat, Nairobi, Pretoria: Three Routes to an AI Rulebook

Key points

• On 16 October 2026 Ahmed Rahhou, until then president of Morocco’s Competition Council, was appointed to head a new Ministry of Artificial Intelligence, Digital Transformation and Administrative Reform, the first Moroccan ministry with AI in its title.
• On 15 October 2026 Kenya’s Senate Standing Committee on ICT recommended that the Senate not proceed with the Artificial Intelligence Bill, 2026, after 143 stakeholder submissions, and said a national AI policy should come first.
• South Africa’s communications minister, Solly Malatsi, told TechCabal on 15 October 2026 that he expects Cabinet to finalise a replacement national AI policy by the end of March 2027, denying this was a new deadline; one of two officials suspended over fabricated citations in the withdrawn draft has resigned.

In two days last week, three of Africa’s most active AI policymakers moved in different directions. Morocco built an institution. A Kenyan Senate committee stepped back from a statute. South Africa’s minister restated the end of March 2027 as the target for Cabinet to finalise the policy withdrawn in April over invented references. Read together, the three decisions show something no single report has: none of these states has a binding AI statute in sight this year, so the rules for how ministries use AI will, for now, be set by executives, budgets and existing data-protection law rather than by parliaments. It is the national floor of Africa’s three-floor AI rulebook that is moving.

Built by AI & GPP from the sources listed below.

Rabat gives AI a cabinet minister before it has a law

King Mohammed VI appointed Fatima Ezzahra El Mansouri’s government at the Royal Palace in Rabat on 16 October. The ministerial list published by Finances News Hebdo (in French) names Ahmed Rahhou Minister of Artificial Intelligence, Digital Transformation and Administrative Reform, with Aïcha Guellaa as delegate minister for administrative reform under him. The cabinet follows September’s elections, whose AI rules AI & GPP examined last week.

Rahhou, 68, is a Polytechnique-trained engineer who ran CIH Bank and chaired the Conseil de la concurrence, the competition authority, from 22 March 2021 until this appointment, according to Le360 (in French). Le360 reports that the portfolio extends the digital transition and administrative reform brief held since October 2024 by Amal El Fallah Seghrouchni, an AI researcher who served as a delegated minister, and that the AI directorate-general she announced in October 2025 to prepare a framework law now passes to him. A manager and regulator replacing a scientist signals that delivery is the brief.

What the ministry will do is less settled. Maroc Hebdo (in French) reads the new title as pointing to cross-government AI coordination from justice to customs, the Idarati AI citizen assistant, an AI marketplace with data hosted in Morocco, the unfinished legal framework, and skills training. Two of those are inherited: the previous ministry presented Idarati AI, an agentic assistant for administrative procedures, and a sovereign AI marketplace at a review of the Maroc IA 2030 roadmap on 8 September, Hespress reported (in French). AI & GPP found no official text defining the new ministry’s remit, so its priorities rest on press accounts. Money comes first: Maroc Hebdo noted that the 2027 finance bill was due for examination from 17 October.

Fusing AI with civil-service reform matters more than the title: it makes the minister answerable for the state as a user of AI, and gives suppliers one counterpart judged on public services.

Nairobi’s Senate committee says policy must come before law

Kenya tried the opposite order. The Artificial Intelligence Bill, 2026, sponsored by the nominated senator Karen Nyamu, was published on 19 February and read a first time on 2 April, according to the Senate’s bill digest. It would create an Office of the Artificial Intelligence Commissioner, sort AI into four risk tiers, class public-administration systems as high risk and bind every public entity, counties included. Misusing AI in the public sector to the detriment of public benefit or rights would carry up to KSh5m, two years in prison, or both.

On 15 October the Senate’s ICT committee, chaired by Allan Chesang, senator for Trans Nzoia, advised the House not to proceed, The Star reported. After 143 submissions, its report says the Bill “may regulate AI too broadly, too early and too punitively”, and records stakeholder worry about a “Super Regulator” overlapping the Communications Authority of Kenya and the Office of the Data Protection Commissioner. The committee added that most AI used in Kenya is foreign-built, which makes a centralised regime hard to enforce, and the ICT ministry told it that its national AI policy was nearly finished.

The draft Kenya Artificial Intelligence and Other Emerging Technologies Policy closed for comment on 4 August, under the ministry’s public notice. The committee’s recommendation still needs a plenary vote, for which no date has been reported. Meanwhile, as Techweez pointed out, the Data Protection Act, 2019 offers some cover through its rules on automated decision-making, but was never built for questions such as AI in public-sector decisions.

Pretoria’s redraft slips to 2027 after a false start

South Africa chose policy first and stumbled on process. Cabinet approved the Draft National AI Policy on 25 March 2026 and it was gazetted for comment on 10 April; on 26 April Malatsi withdrew it after an internal check confirmed fictitious entries in its reference list. “This failure is not a mere technical issue but has compromised the integrity and credibility of the draft policy,” he said, according to SAnews.

On 15 October Malatsi told TechCabal that two officials had been suspended for not disclosing AI use that contributed to the fake references; one has resigned and disciplinary proceedings against the other continue. At a Johannesburg skills summit the same day he said: “Yes, it is very late, and that is the consequence of having a false start.” He expects Cabinet to finalise the replacement by the close of March 2027 and consultation to open in April. He denied that this is a new deadline, saying an earlier January 2027 reference and the end of the 2026/27 financial year were not separate dates.

The slippage predates last week. In September iAfrica reported that an acting deputy director-general, Jeanette Morwane, had told Parliament the redraft would reach Cabinet in November 2026, with January 2027 as a fallback for consultation. It now rests with an expert panel led by the Wits MIND Institute’s director, Professor Benjamin Rosman, Wits University announced.

Why all three routes leave ministries writing the working rules

Morocco has authority but no published mandate or law. Kenya had a detailed bill but no settled policy or regulator design beneath it. South Africa had a policy and a Cabinet decision but not the controls to verify its own document. The shared result, at least into 2027, is public-sector AI governed by ministerial programmes, procurement terms, hosting requirements and data-protection regulators rather than AI-specific law.

Kenya’s committee had a point: a commissioner wielding criminal penalties, designed before the policy, risked duplicating regulators and missing foreign-built systems. But the Bill also held the clearest public-sector duties on offer, such as a public register of high-risk systems. Shelving it removes those too. South Africa’s episode suggests the first AI rule a government needs is a disclosure rule for its own drafting; AI & GPP could find none published by the department.

What decision-makers should watch before April 2027

• Morocco: an official text defining the ministry’s remit, the AI lines in the 2027 finance bill and a draft framework law. The marketplace’s in-country hosting suggests suppliers should plan for data localisation.
• Kenya: the Senate plenary vote and adoption of the final AI policy. Until then, public bodies deploying AI should treat the Data Protection Commissioner as the regulator that matters.
• South Africa: the end-March 2027 Cabinet target and whether the department publishes a rule on declaring AI use in official documents. Without one, a resignation is a sanction, not a safeguard.

Questions this answers

Does Morocco now have a ministry for artificial intelligence?
Yes. Ahmed Rahhou was appointed Minister of Artificial Intelligence, Digital Transformation and Administrative Reform on 16 October 2026, according to the list published by Finances News Hebdo.

Is Kenya’s Artificial Intelligence Bill, 2026 dead?
Not formally. The Senate ICT committee recommended on 15 October that the Senate not proceed, The Star reported, but the full Senate has yet to vote.

When will South Africa have a national AI policy?
Not before 2027. Malatsi told TechCabal that Cabinet should finalise the replacement by the end of March 2027, with consultation from April.

Sources

1. The Artificial Intelligence Bill, 2026 (Senate Bills No. 4 of 2026): Bill Digest — Parliament of Kenya, The Senate, undated (posted April 2026) (PDF)
2. Senate committee shoots down Nyamu’s Bill on AI, warns of Sh5 million fines — The Star (Kenya), 15 October 2026 (paywall; report extracts visible)
3. Kenya’s First AI Bill Stalls Over Fears of Overregulation — Techweez, 16 October 2026
4. Public Notice: Call for Comments on the Draft Kenya Artificial Intelligence and Other Emerging Technologies Policy — Ministry of Information, Communications and the Digital Economy (State Department for ICT and the Digital Economy), undated (posted July 2026) (PDF)
5. Minister announces withdrawal of draft AI Policy — SAnews (Government Communication and Information System), 26 April 2026
6. Malatsi wants South Africa’s AI policy back on track after false start — TechCabal, 15 October 2026
7. ‘We Didn’t Interrogate the Bibliography’: Malatsi on the AI Policy Collapse, and a Redraft Now Slipping to March 2027 — iAfrica.com, 25 September 2026
8. Professor Benjamin Rosman leads South Africa’s AI policy panel — University of the Witwatersrand, 14 May 2026
9. Gouvernement El Mansouri : le Roi préside la cérémonie de nomination des ministres — Finances News Hebdo, 16 October 2026 (in French; translation by AI & GPP)
10. Ahmed Rahhou, ancien patron du CIH et président du Conseil de la concurrence, aux commandes de l’IA — Le360, 16 October 2026 (in French; translation by AI & GPP)
11. Une première : le Maroc se dote d’un ministère de l’IA — Maroc Hebdo, 16 October 2026 (in French; translation by AI & GPP)
12. Les principales avancées de la feuille de route « Maroc IA 2030 » présentées à Rabat — Hespress FR, 9 September 2026 (in French; translation by AI & GPP)