Nana Kwaku Agyemang (pictured here), CEO of the Hempire Association of Ghana (HAG), was visibly at his wits end during a Cheeba Africa webinar on the state of African cannabis held on 31 March 2026.
He was one of the panellists on a platform discussing the state of play in the African cannabis landscape. Earlier, Kenneth Kwamina Thompson, a Ghanaian industrialist had sketched a rosy picture of Ghana’s prospects of earning a billion dollars in forex from the recently legalized hemp sector.
Ghana: A Mad Mix of Exorbitant Fees and Impractical Policies
Agyemang took issue with his outlook, saying that Ghana’s Narcotics Control Commission (NACOC) had resolutely opposed all overtures to accommodate local farmers in hemp development and that without their involvement the sector was not sustainable over the longer term. He expressed his frustration at the way Ghana’s government had designed a system to lock out locals in favour of forex-generating multinationals.
Ghana’s cannabis license fees are probably the highest in the world – US$45 000/ha for a cultivation license gives one an idea of the level where the game is being pitched. Zambian farmer Mariam Alhassan is challenging NACOC’s policy in the supreme court on its constitutionality. At the heart of her case is the constitutionally-enshrined principle that Ghanaians must be beneficaries of any government economic development policies and programmes.
Agyemang said that exorbitant licence fees were one thing, but it got worse when one drilled down to the practicalities as to how the Accra government is intent on extracting money from every step of the value chain.
To illustrate the absurdity of Ghana’s multi-tiered cannabis licensing regime, he used the example of license conditions for transporting hemp: “You need to pay two US dollars a kilometre to transport industrial cannabis – and you are required to hire two armed guards from the Narcotics Control Commission to accompany the delivery. I mean hemp is non-psychoactive. What are people going to steal it for?” he asked. “To make a big bonfire in the bush?”
He said the publication of cannabis regulations in January 2026 had come as a huge disappointment to local farmers who had been excited about becoming part of the hemp revolution.
“What they give with the one hand, they take with the other” said Agyemang, calling on African cannabis associations and regulators to intervene help persuade the NACOC to be more accommodating.
Zambian Approach Could Benefit Ghana
Fellow panellist, Dr Propser Sievu of the recently formed Zambian Cannabis Control Authority (ZCCA) was the first one to take up the invitation. He said he would willingly engage on HAG’s behalf with the Ghanaian government to share Zambia’s experiences.
Zambia is in the process of formalizing the ZCCA as the country’s apex cannabis institution and has been quietly developing a model to include small-scale farmers in hemp cultivation with both the Zambian Defence Force and traditional leaders pledging to make land available for sustainable hemp farming.
To date the Zambian Defence Force has been the ‘custodian’ of cannabis. It led a fact-finding delegation to South Africa in 2024 and has set aside ha in province for hemp cultivation.
The ZCCA will now be taking over responsibility for cannabis policy with a mandate that it should benefit farmers and the general public.
Under Dr Sievu’s stewardship, Zambia is planning on deepening cannabinoid research and how locally-developed cannabis medicines can be incorporated into the public health system. This is a new initiative for the local market as Zambia had previously been focused on an export model. Although general adult-use consumption remains illegal in Zambia, the country is taking concrete steps to ensure that its farmers benefit from cannabis reform, and that an African approach to medical cannabis is adopted.
Panel convener Trenton Birch of Cheeba Africa and Lameck Nthlekela of Hemp Innovations Botswana (HIB) also pledged their support for HAG’s initiative.
Collaboration is the Key to Developing an African Cannabis Framework
South African panellist Cian McLelland, a director of the South African Cannabis and Hemp Industrial Development Association (SACHIDA) and CEO of Druids Garden, said that Africa’s patchwork regulatory framework was a major stumbling block in Africa becoming the cannabis powerhouse that it should be.
One such example was the hemp nutritional ‘superfood’ that had been developed by Druids in collaboration with the CSIR and with Gauteng government funding. Although this was a ‘low hanging fruit’ in generating community benefits from hemp, and was ready for market, current South African regulations prevented it from being introduced into school feeding schemes.
