The licensing and growing of mbanje has been suspended as the government says it is going back to the drawing board. Deputy Finance mi...
The licensing and growing of mbanje has been suspended as
the government says it is going back to the drawing board.
Deputy Finance minister Terrence Mukupe has told the Daily
News that the licensing of cannabis had been put on ice to enable government to
plug loopholes that might arise in future.
“All the applications had been submitted to MCAZ, but what
has since happened is that MCAZ has put everything on hold,” he said, adding “
. . . the response was quite overwhelming”.
“MCAZ has put on hold licensing until they are pretty clear
in terms of all the modalities like; how do we actually implement?” Mukupe
said.
He said government needed to conduct a “proper feasibility
study” first.
“When I was talking to the deputy minister of Agriculture,
he told me that they had over 350 applications. The expectations of most of the
applicants was that they will be allowed to grow mbanje on their farms, and
then there is so much difference in terms of what people are asking for . . .
we had a Dutch investor whose proposal was saying that all he needed was 60
hectares and out of 60 hectares he was talking of making as much as $100
million to $200 million annually, and then we have another investor who was
saying that he needs 10 000 hectares and out of 10 000 hectares he was talking
of making about $100 million to $200 million as well. There is too much of a
difference.”
“What has to be done on our side as government is probably
to have a proper feasibility study and have experts telling us what’s actually
the truth . . . when you go over the 350 applications the difference in numbers
and what they are talking about; it’s crazy,” Mukupe said.
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