President of APEMO: Outlines progress and plans for the cannabis project coupled with the perfomance of Okhahlamba Local Municipality

Following the legalisation of Cannabis in 2018, there’s always been a confusion with how to implement and enforce the new regulations. However, Okhahlamba Municipality led by Cllr VR Mlotsha, has focused on was to empower the people by using the pharmaceutical frame work and stay away from recreational marijuana or dagga. Therefore, local government will not encourage smoking, but rather the medicinal advancement and utilisation for the health benefits for our people and also expand internationally. The objective is to gain the full value chain and benefits to support our rural communities.

The Municipality collaborated with the 3 traditional councils and Amakhosi, the Amaswazi, Amazizi and Amangwane. All Amakhosi will own the full production line and support the SPV which is a commercial vehicle we using to engage with industry for production of goods and selling it to the market.

Insangu dives deep into the history of our people and they have been growing it for centuries. During the dagga war our people were subjected to the oppressive regime of apartheid and they were fighting to freely grow the plant on their own. The police distroyed crops using chemicals and our people were arrested and 22 of them where hung in Pretoria for the possession of Cannabis.

Although the Municipality has no power to stop people from smoking and recreational use of marijuana. Our project purely focuses on the pharmaceutical use of the plant. We want to specialise in making super foods, medicine and animal feed.

When it comes to the performance, governance  and service delivery of the Municipality:-

Okhahlamba Municipality is performing very well and it has been able to maintain its clean audit opinion from Auditor General in the 2021/2022 financial year.
The clean audit that has been achieved is for the 8th consecutive time.

The Municipality is led by a coalition government, the Mayor is from APEMO, the Deputy Mayor is from ANC and the speaker is from NFP. Council meetings are sitting every month without fail. Okhahlamba is a good case study of how coalision government should be managed.

When it comes to service delivery the Municipality is amongst the top 5 high performing municipalities in Kzn with regards to Municipal Infrastructure Grant expenditure. The high performance on infrastructure delivery assist the Municipality to attract more funding.

Okhahlamba Municipality is at above 95% to reach universal access to electricity for its citizens. The Municipality aspires to be the capital tourism hub for cannibis.

Okhahlamba is the future home of the Drakensberg Cable Car which is going to be the Economic Game changer not just for okhahlamba but for the province of kwazulu natal. The Drakensberg cable car will provide the necessary and a much needed tourism investment in our shores. This is a 7 km cable way with a mid station, its base station is at Ubusingatha Area in Bergville and the top station is on Mount Ameri on the drakensberg mountains next to the World heritage site.

The Council of Okhahlamba committed itself to commemorating the Ngoba 22 every year in march as part of human rights celebrations.

Council is working tirelessly to find the Graves of Ngoba 22 at Rebecca cemetery. Once Graves have been identified, the exhumation and the reburial at Bergville in Engoba will take place. The reburial site at ingoba has been identified. The reburial site is to be declared a provincial heritage site.

The exhumation and reburial of Ngoba 22 will bring closure to the affected families and Amangwane tribe as well as the people of Okhahlamba Municipality