Cannabiz Africa understands that construction has stopped at KKOG’s Musanze District site with 80% of the construction work done. AllAfrica News reports that the company’s chief executive Rene Joseph says that the project has stalled due to failure to raise more funding as well as failure by RDB to honor its commitments.
KKOG Rwanda, a subsidiary of California-based KKOG Global, holds the distinction of being the first company granted a five-year cannabis cultivation and export license under Rwanda’s 2021 framework. In 2024 it secured a five year license to cultivate medicinal cannabis process it into therapeutic products and export them.
King Kong Organics (KKOG), founded in 2007 as Mantis Green, is a globally integrated pharmaceutical cannabis company active across the value chain — from cultivation, manufacturing and extraction to distribution and patient care. Founded in 2007 as Mantis Green, KKOG has evolved into a multi-national cannabis platform with a significant focus on Africa.
The funding issue has raised a question about the way Rwanda manages relationships with key stakeholders. No mention was made of KKOG at the recent announcement by President Paul Kgame that on 24 July 2026, that his Cabinet awarded a concession to cultivate and process cannabis to InipasvalleyRw Ltd under the same High-Value Therapeutic Crops Project.
KKOG’s Joseph says Rwanda has not followed through on US$2,5 million of funding committed in a signed Memorandum of Understanding. He said in terms of the MoU, KKOG had committed US10 million but that the Kigali government had not come to the party. He claims the funding was never disbursed despite repeated follow-ups.
Joseph also maintained that he has been unable to resolve land title issues over the property in Musanze where KKOG’s processing facility was supposed to be set up.
In the meantime, KKOG is finding itself having to commit more funding to keep the project alive. Initial reporting put KKOG’s investment at around US $10 million. CNBC Africa, in an October 2025 report, revised that figure upward to roughly US$12 million. That was on the basis that the company would scale up investment as the project developed, but that is now all on hold..
The core problem is that the Rwanda Innovation Fund, the main agency through which cannabis funding is being routed, simply does not have the budget to back up its commitments. According to the Rwanda Development Board, the RIF’s entire cannabis budget for 2023/4, after it had made the MoU commitment, was Rwf1,1 billion, which in dollar terms, translates into a paltry US$750 000, a shortfall of US$1,75 million.
Although Rwanda is talking up its commitment to creating an investor-friendly, export-licensing regime, the reality on the ground speaks otherwise. The country is scrabbling to raise its own cannabis capital, and it has made promises without the back-up budget.
In it’s advice on Rwanda, Seedteva that “investors and journalists watching Rwanda’s cannabis sector should treat the July 2026 concession as a lead worth following, not a data point to build conclusions on”.
It says that the `KKOG saga is “worth tracking as a benchmark for whether Rwanda’s cannabis bet is producing real capital deployment or mostly press releases”
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