Multinational Company Captures Lesotho Cannabis Regulators
Two senior Lesotho health ministry officials who oversee cannabis industry licensing in Lesotho are linked to a London-based company that plans to invest in the manufacture of medicinal cannabis in the kingdom, the MNN Centre for Investigative Journalism has learnt.
The company, Afriag Global PLC, announced in a statement on its interim results that it had appointed the ministry’s director of pharmacy, Germina Mphoso and its legal officer, ‘Masello Sello, to a technical committee “responsible for reviewing potential investments within the medicinal cannabis sector and reporting to the company’s board on a regular basis”.
Lesotho’s Minister of Health, Nkaku Kabi, and principal secretaries for health, ‘Mole Kumalo [former] and Lefu Manyokole, told MNN they had no knowledge of the appointments.
It has also been established that one of the shareholders in Afriag Global PLC’s Lesotho-linked company is controversial businessman Paul de Robillard, allegedly implicated in a 2010 tax probe in South Africa as a member of a tobacco smuggling ring.
