Participants cited the failure of government departments to come up with a common stance on cannabis and territorial battles by senior bureaucrats as being among the reasons for their withdrawal.
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The KwaZulu-Natal government will set up a cannabis council to oversee the development of the industry in the province and help with implementing the national masterplan for the crop.
The provincial cabinet took the decision to appoint the council shortly after President Cyril Ramaphosa announced in his State of the Nation address that the cannabis industry would be fast tracked, with KwaZulu-Natal and the Eastern Cape taking a lead in this.
The council will bring government departments and all interested parties together at a planning and development level, helping to build markets and products and promote awareness around cannabis.
It will be responsible for growing the cannabis and hemp industry by ensuring adherence to regulatory and seed-supply systems, as well as research and technology development.
Traditional authorities will also play a role in the release of parcels of land under their control for cannabis and hemp cultivation and processing.
Both KwaZulu-Natal and the Eastern Cape already have existing illegal cannabis industries, which have been operating since the use of the plant was first restricted by colonial authorities in 1922.
The decriminalisation of cannabis for private use in 2018 has also seen a significant increase in personal cultivation — which is now legal — while cannabis dispensaries have sprung up in major centres in both provinces — and the rest of the country — providing a variety of smokeable and edible cannabis products.
Lennox Mabaso, spokesperson for KwaZulu-Natal Premier Sihle Zikalala, said this week that the licensing regime for cannabis was likely to be administered by the national government, but that the province would focus on assisting with production, securing markets and promoting the commercial industry.
At this stage, work would focus on hemp, in line with the framework announced by Agriculture Minister Thoko Didiza last October, while a provincial masterplan, in line with the national one, was developed and legislation to govern the industry was promulgated.
Initial indications were that a mainstream industry could create about 20 000 jobs in the province at various points in the cannabis value chain from cultivation to point of sale, Mabaso said.
“Traditional leadership is key in ensuring that they are not only part of the plan, but also work with rural communities to unlock land parcels key for plantation and agro-processing,” he added. “The province is getting ready to ensure that everything which is required to implement the masterplan is in place.”
Mabaso said the council would be appointed through a transparent process and would be “fit for purpose” in terms of its individual and collective set of skills.
Mabaso said consideration needed to be given to ensuring that the thus far underground industry — which plays an important economic role in rural communities in the western and southern parts of the province — was integrated into the new, mainstream industry.
Likewise, it was important to ensure that rural communities whose land hosted cannabis projects set up as part of the new industry were also beneficiaries of the process.
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