Tito Mboweni was a friend of cannabis, although not himself an imbiber. 

The former Finance Minister was my Limpopo “neighbour”, who would often drop by over the years at my family’s lodge, Kingswalden Garden Manor, just outside Tzaneen. He’d pause there on his way from his Magoebaskloof farm to have his usual medium-rare steak washed down with Johnny Walker Black, before he hit the lowveld to deal with family and other community issues. He was always jovial, flirting with my sister Bridget, and bemoaning the lack of cattle and goats in Kingswalden’s historic gardens. He was a Cannabiz Africa reader and delighted in bringing up the subject of the plant at any suitable moment.

From the veranda he’d point to the northern Drakensberg hills and valleys in the distance and describe how land restitution had resulted in the widespread planting of cannabis in orchards where mangoes had previously been grown.

‘Dagga is a very easy way for a community to make money’

“I’ve driven through those areas myself” he said. “I’ve asked the guys on the side of the road what happened to the farms they had taken over. They told me they wanted jobs more than land as farming can be difficult. For them to grow cannabis made sense”.

“Dagga is a very easy way for a community to earn a living” he added. "Rural communities in South Africa have been growing it for a long, long time. We should work with that reality

Mboweni, who during his stint in Cabinet as Finance Minister (2018 to 2021) and previously as Governor of the Reserve Bank (1999 -2009) was a very vocal proponent of cannabis reform (and fiscal prudence – the Rand dropped from R6.00 to the dollar to R7.20 during his tenure!) He also served as Labour Minister in former president Nelson Mandela’s cabinet from 1994 to 1998, and before that worked as the deputy head of the department of economic policy in the ANC.

He told me back in 2019, that on his rudimentary projections, the South African fiscus could earn R4,5 billion in tax revenue from the Eastern Cape alone, if cannabis was to be fully legalized.

Mboweni’s Cannabis Twitter Campaign

His interest in the plant was further piqued in September 2020 when he found his gardener growing cannabis in a quiet corner of his Magoebaskloof farm, and put the picture out on Twitter:

“I found this growing on the farm! Cut it down or let it grow? How did it get here? Should we just legalize this thing once and for all? I can see the responses. Say it”

Mboweni received  positive feedback from his 500 000 or so followers on Twitter, with one response encouraging the minister to smoke some himself:

“Smoke it Mr Minister… It helps with the financial calculations.” That could explain the NHI (National Health Insurance) calculations”.

Mboweni then posted:

My neighbour found this thing too! The soil is ready in Magoebaskloof to grow it LEGALLY! The economy in Lusikisiki and Tzaneen is waiting for legal growth of the stuff. R4 bn plus!! Tax money!!”

Mboweni then pledged to take up the legalization issue at the next Cabinet Lekgotla, which he did, but made little headway. At the time the Justice Ministry firmly controlled cannabis through the Drugs Act and the Agriculture Department, which was in charge of the National Cannabis Master Plan, did not have the vision or the political wherewithal to achieve anything meaningful.

Instead of Billions, Treasury Has Earned Only Crumbs From Cannabis

Indeed, if one looks back at President Cyril Ramaphosa’s State of the Nation Address (SONA) of 17 Feb 2020, he said: "This year we will open up and regulate the commercial use of hemp products, providing opportunities for small-scale farmers; and formulate policy on the use of cannabis products for medicinal purposes, to build this industry in line with global trends. The regulatory steps will soon be announced by the relevant ministers".

Cannabis stakeholders would be forgiven for looking back on these last four years as a wasted opportunity given the status of cannabis reform. In short, real action from Government has not been forthcoming, despite the many pledges and promises. In fact, the President’s 2020 words could have been cut and pasted into this year’s SONA (in which cannabis was not mentioned at all) and they would have still held true.

After leaving Government in 2021, Mboweni became very disillusioned with the State’s capacity to push through with reform of any kind. When I canvassed him on private sector involvement on the National Cannabis Master Plan back in 2022, he said: “The private sector should look after itself, involvement with Government will come to nothing”.

Mboweni’s cynicism was justified at the time as the Private Sector Working Group initiative to assist Government with cannabis policy, collapsed in 2022 because of turf squabbles and a lack of political follow-through.

Instead of the billions pouring into tax coffers as the former Reserve Bank Governor hoped, SARS earned just over R11 mlllion from legal cannabis-related activities in 2022/23.

But Mboweni never gave up his enthusiasm for cannabis legalization from a personal and political perspective, even after retiring. He last messaged me last year saying that Cannabiz Africa should pay more attention to issues surrounding labour and cannabis.

This he said, was the arena, where cannabis reform would most be tested.

He would also have smiled supportively if he’d heard Vanessa de Souza’s recent comment that GrowOneAfrica’s private cannabis club software ensured compliance from “Seed to SARS”. He would have been in favour of such self-regulation as long as Treasury got its piece.

Could Parks Tau Be the New Voice of Cannabis in Cabinet

Mboweni’s pro-cannabis voice in Cabinet has been absent for over three years. Hopefully, there’s a new voice that will take his place: that of Parks Tau, the new minister of Trade, Industry and Competition (DTIC). He too is a friend of cannabis. During his tenure as Gauteng Premier, Tau fast-tracked the province’s cannabis reform programme. This continued under his successor David Makhura, but since then Gauteng has fallen off the cannabis map, bedevilled by incompetence and corruption.

Tau, in his new portfolio, will now be working closely with new Agriculture Minister (and DA leader) John Steenhuisen to develop mechanisms to bring small-scale cannabis farmers into the legal mainstream and to drive Cabinet’s proposed cannabis commercialization policy.

Although Agriculture is in overall charge of the National Cannabis Master Plan, the DTIC will be responsible for delivering certain “outputs”. Among these is to find a way of creating regulatory “sandboxes” to encourage private sector and community cannabis initiatives in the short term while legislative alignment unfolds.

President Ramaphosa said in a message on 13 October 2024 commemorating Mboweni following his death from a short illness:

“Given his sense of vitality and energetic and affable engagement with fellow South Africans, Dr Mboweni’s passing at 65 comes as a shock. We have lost a leader and compatriot who has served our nation as an activist, economic policy innovator and champion of labour rights.”

We have also lost a leader who was a close friend of cannabis. He did much to change the political mindset of ANC leaders to see cannabis as an opportunity to create jobs and fight rural poverty. 

Something of his legacy endures in that his old mate Cyril has taken personal responsibility to unlock the plant’s potential. He’s made it a special project in the Presidency’s Operation Vulundlela, which is charged with implementing the structural changes required to bring cannabis into the economic mainstream.

We will miss the Duke of Magoebaskloof! Hambe kahle Tito.

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