Lawmakers are set to debate the Fees and Charges Bill when Parliament resumes on Tuesday 21 October 2025 for the start of the Third sitting of the First session of the 9th Parliament.
Hemp stakeholders will be watching proceedings closely and hoping the licensing fees structure is finalised once and for all when the bill comes before Parliament. It’s been over a year since the fees and charges were proposed but bureaucratic delays have pushed back further the formal launching of Ghana’s hemp programme.
Uncertainty and hesitancy among lawmakers and inertia among relevant government structures have largely been blamed for delaying the official release of the long-awaited regulations. The result is that more than five years after the passing of the Narcotics Control Commission Act 2020 there has been little concrete action to ensure the off taking of a hemp industry.
It took almost four long years for the Legal Instrument (LI) to be prepared after the Act was passed but even so its publication was met with criticism from stakeholders for among others containing reportedly unrealistic and sometimes incoherent provisions.
These included fees too exorbitant and deemed to be a barrier to the emergence of a viable cannabis sector in Ghana. The country’s leading hemp authority, Hempire Association of Ghana (HAG), has for instance, insisted that fees be realistic and fair to enable Ghana to realise its potential. Meanwhile investors and farmers have been standing anxiously on the sidelines pending the confirmation of the fees regulations which sources say only started receiving the attention of the Ministry of Finance after the new administration of President John Dramani Mahama which took over in January exerted pressure.
As many as 300 farmer groups in the country’s 16 regions and 70 registered local businesses were on the ready to participate in the local hemp industry soon after the Hemp Act was passed. However, policy indirection and the proposed high fees are said to have left some investors discouraged.
Ghana is looking to diversify its cash crop economy, dominated for years by cocoa, whose pricepeaked in January but fell to US$5,822 per ton on 13 October, according to economics data analysis firm Trading Economics. Hemp would comparatively be more economically rewarding as current industrial hemp prices range from US $260-$340 for raw fibre.
Hemp would also assist reverse a plastic environmental waste crisis for the west African country. For instance, MP Zanetor Agyeman-Rawlings, the daughter of former President Jerry Rawlings, has called for the adoption of hemp to offset a worsening plastic menace.
Degradation of agricultural land by illegal mining prospectors has been another source of environmental damage and hemp with its deep tap roots could also help restore fertility and improve soil structure for agriculture to flourish.
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