It’s official — the Eastern Cape is to get its first cannabis agricultural college and the first students are expected to register in January 2025.
Ntabankulu mayor Tsileng Sobuthongo announced the plan to build the R220m college in the heart of the province’s cannabis-producing region during a visit by premier Oscar Mabuyane to the town on Friday.
Mabuyane was there to launch a R15m state-of-the-art traffic department as part of the provincial government’s small-town revitalisation programme.
The cannabis college is to be built on municipal land close to the new traffic department.
Sobuthongo told the Daily Dispatch money for its construction had been made available through the Wholesale and Retail Sector Education and Training Authority (W&RSeta), an entity of the department of higher education and technology.
She said the new facility would operate primarily as an agricultural college but would also have a herb processing plant of which cannabis would form a significant component.
“The completion of the first phase is expected by September 2024 and the first intake of students would probably be in January 2025.”
It was envisaged that indigenous cannabis farmers in the province would play a pivotal tole in supplying the processing plant with produce.
The college would also focus on producing cannabis for medicinal processes in line with the South African Health Products Regulatory Authority’s guidelines and regulations.
“The R80m funding [secured from W&RSeta] is only for phase 1.
“More than R140m is still being sought from other funders within the higher education department,” Sobuthongo said.
Tender adverts to select the building contractors were already out.
“The completion of the first phase is expected by September 2024 and the first intake of students would probably be in January 2025.”
Sobuthongo said the municipality would also build student accommodation in Ntabankulu.
This would include making land available for investors.
Such developments would enhance the town’s buying power as students would come from all over the province.
Eight years ago, the Human Sciences Research Council ranked Ntabankulu as the poorest town in South Africa.
The mayor, however, said the municipality was trying to attract investment to help change people’s lives.
“This includes the [cannabis] college and other infrastructure interventions by the office of the premier and other government institutions.
“This [major infrastructure development] will boost the Ntabankulu economy.
“Most of our people are dependent on grants and that is what we are changing with these huge investments.”
Agriculture and the informal business sector were the biggest economic drivers in the area.
Sobuthongo said Ntabankulu had always been a major hub for cannabis production in the Mpondoland area.
Some of the area’s small-time growers had convictions and criminal records dating back to the 1980s and before.
In his state of the nation address in 2022, President Cyril Ramaphosa singled out the people of Mpondoland as those who would gain most from a thriving cannabis industry in the Eastern Cape which could create at least 130,000 jobs.
Eastern Cape Rural Development Agency cannabis specialist Dr Sunshine Blouw told the Dispatch in October there were 300,000 indigenous cannabis growers in the Mpondoland area, from Ntabankulu to Mbizana, Lusikisiki, Flagstaff, Port St Johns, Libode and Ngqeleni.
Many of the growers said they were starving and blasted the government for what they perceived as the slow pace of finalising enabling legislation for the sector.
“We are unhappy with the progress the government is making with regard to the legal framework and the sense of urgency.
“We are feeding families.
“That is why we are cultivating cannabis. We don’t smoke and get high from it,” Mpondoland Cannabis Belt secretary Snoux Poswa said at the time.
• According to its website, the W&RSeta was established in 2000 in terms of the Skills Development Act.
It is designed to facilitate the skills development needs of the wholesale and retail sector through the implementation of learning programmes, disbursement of grants and monitoring of education and training, as outlined in the National Skills Development Plan.
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