By Daniel Itai, Lusaka Zambia.
(News of The South) – According to some economists, Zambia’s recent legalisation of the production and exportation of cannabis for economic and medicinal purposes could be the solution to its external debt of US$10.5 billion.
Leader of the opposition Green Party, Peter Sinkamba, has been advocating for the export of cannabis since 2013.
“Depending on how properly this is done, this could just change the face of Zambia’s economy. This could be a blessing or a curse, like diamonds and gold, depending on the policy direction,” said Sinkamba.
The global cannabis market is currently estimated to be worth US$340 billion. Anthony Bwalya a Zambian economist hinted that cannabis could open the doors for Zambia’s economy.
“It must be noted that the level of technical expertise and intensity of capital associated with the cannabis supply chain, from growing, marketing to selling is relatively friendly and nowhere near as laborious as the mining industry, perhaps save for a few stringent global regulatory requirements.
Zambians can own the cannabis industry 100 percent and internalize 100 percent of all forex revenues arising from this business. Capturing even a paltry 1 percent of the global cannabis market could potentially generate billions of dollars per annum for the country.
As far as the participation of small scale farmers and local private sector is concerned, the lisence fee must be enabling enough to ensure that locals are not excluded from actively and fully participating in building their own economy.
The participation of foreign entrants must be heavily regulated and restricted to working partnerships with locals to avoid the unnecessary externalization of forex revenue.
At the end of the day, this must be an enterprise fully owned by Zambians.
Politicians must resist the temptation of hijacking this enterprise away from the people. We have already seen this with Mukula and other mineral resources where corrupt government officials have been the principal beneficiaries while the people suffer.
We cannot and we will not accept this sort of scenario with Cannabis. The legalization of Marijuana in Zambia could well be the making or breaking of us,” said Bwalya.
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