E2.1BN CANNABIS INVESTMENT BLOW FOR ESWATINI

MBABANE – It’s a huge blow!

The Kingdom of Eswatini has lost out on a potential E2.1 billion cannabis investment. This follows the exit of a locally registered company, SwAurora Organic Health Products, which has now moved its investment to another country in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region. The company first set up shop in the country about four years ago and had applied to be granted a licence to operate and produce cannabis oil for medicinal purposes. SwAurora, which means Swa (Swazi) aurora (gold), according to its Chief Executive Officer Leandra du Plessis, has since found ‘greener’ pastures in a SADC country. Unconfirmed reports are to the effect that the company has found a home in Zambia. During an interview with du Plessis, who left the country last week Friday, she revealed that they were going to continue with the same name at their new destination.

Economy

She highlighted that she and her partners had already spent about E4 million in Eswatini through various drives she had in trying to spread the word on how the cannabis cultivation would revive the country’s economy. She said some of the money spent was used to fly and host some Members of Parliament (MPs) to countries like South Africa while her company was lobbying the legislators to pass the amendment of the Opium and Habit-Forming Drugs Act, which would have allowed the minister of Health to issue licences for the production of cannabis. Du Plessis said from the very start, Swaurora’s stance was that emaSwati must benefit from the cannabis industry as much as possible.

“We put together a business plan that we called The Tinkhundla Project and we did various presentations to government officials, especially to the Minister of Tinkhundla Administration and Development, David Ngcamphalala,” said du Plessis. She said everyone of the 59 tinkhundla centres in the country would have been involved, depending on the size of land each was willing to put up for the project. “This would have had a huge impact on the country financially. This was going to involve the University of Eswatini, Royal Science and Technology Park (RSTP), chiefs, the MPs and the communities,” she said. Du Plessis said this would have been a wholly, 100 per cent owned and driven Eswatini business where they had even sourced funding for the project.

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