Botswana can learn from South Africa’s cannabis policy mishaps and craft its own industry based on regulatory certainty.
That’s the view of Cannabis Association of Botswana (CAB) member Sekgele Mogobe who is also owner of pioneer cannabis consultancy Leaf Bantu.
Mogobe was a participating speaker at the recent First Mile Conference, recently held in Gaborone to discuss a legal medical cannabis framework for the country. In this Q&A with Cannabiz Africa’s Africa Editor, John Makoni, Mogobe shares his vision of how Botswana’s cannabis industry should be run like a tight ship.
JM: How important was the First Mile Conference for Botswana’s emerging cannabis industry?
SM: The First Mile Conference represents a watershed moment because it formally moves Botswana’s cannabis conversation from ideological debate into structured economic planning. It signals that cannabis is no longer viewed merely as a controversial crop, but as a legitimate industrial and medicinal commodity with value-chain potential.
A shared national starting point (“first mile”) from which standards, norms, and partnerships can evolve emerged as regulators, policymakers, researchers, entrepreneurs, financiers and civil society engaged on practical issues such as licensing, compliance, export readiness, research, and market positioning.
Importantly, it also begins to frame cannabis as a strategic development sector—not just a revenue tool—linking it to rural development, youth employment, research institutions, and industrialisation. That narrative shift is foundational for long-term legitimacy and investor confidence.
JM: As an insider and consultancy owner, what’s your advice to government as it embarks on getting up and running a new and sustainable industry?
SM: My key advice is that sustainability must be designed into the system from day one, rather than retrofitted later.
· Firstly, government should adopt a phased licensing model: pilot licences, learning licences, and commercial licences. This allows learning, adjustment, and local capacity-building before large-scale market dominance sets in.
· Secondly, embed local participation thresholds—for example, minimum citizen ownership, citizen management participation, and mandatory skills transfer plans attached to licences.
· Thirdly, develop a national cannabis master plan that links research, cultivation, processing, manufacturing, and export in a coherent pipeline, instead of treating licences as isolated approvals.
· Fourthly, sustainability also means data-driven regulation: collecting real-time production, yield, employment, and export data to adjust policy based on evidence rather than assumptions.
· Lastly, government should support incubation and aggregation models (cooperatives, hubs, shared processing facilities) so small operators can plug into the industry without each bearing full capital costs.
JM: What expanded role do you foresee for entities such as yours in the new environment?
SM: Our entity is positioning itself as a bridge between regulators, investors, and emerging local entrepreneurs.
Practically, this includes:
· Assisting citizens with licence readiness (business plans, compliance frameworks, site selection, security layouts, SOPs).
· Supporting land aggregation and project packaging, where multiple small landholders are structured into viable projects.
· Acting as a technical coordination hub, connecting cultivators with labs, processors, logistics providers, and buyers.
· Facilitating partnership structuring, ensuring balanced joint ventures that protect citizen equity.
· Providing market intelligence on product categories (medical flower, extracts, industrial hemp derivatives, research material).
We also foresee a role for us in project co-development, taking minority equity positions in viable citizen-led ventures to strengthen execution.
JM: There was an outcry concerning the licensing regime pricing. What’s your comments on that and on the other regulations unveiled recently?
SM: The unveiling of pricing and regulations is a positive step because regulatory certainty is better than ambiguity. However, affordability and accessibility remain serious concerns.
Current fee levels risk unintentionally favour well-capitalised entities while excluding capable citizen entrepreneurs. This can result in a structurally skewed industry from inception.
I would recommend:
· Tiered licence pricing based on scale and purpose (research, pilot, small commercial, large commercial).
· Deferred or staged fee payments tied to operational milestones.
· Fee rebates or grants for citizen-owned startups and research-focused entities.
· Clear, simple guidance documents to reduce reliance on expensive consultants.
I believe regulation should protect public safety and product quality, but that it should also actively enable citizen participation, not merely police it.
If Botswana gets this balance right early, it can build an industry that is competitive, inclusive, and socially legitimate—rather than extractive.
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