ECP Paid 4 Million Dollars In Bribes To Officials In Uganda

For three months now, we have been giving you a chronological set of events of how the giant construction company, Spencon, was brought down, courtesy of Emerging Capital Partners (ECP).

In a series of verifiable posts, we managed to unearth a deep dark scheme hatched by officials in ECP to loot and bring down Spencon, a company that was a giant in the construction sector in more than nine East African Countries.

In our unearthing, we only centered on how ECP brought down Spencon and how the Kenyan business has been affected. We also outlined the suffering of thousands of employees who were left without jobs when Spencon went down.

READ: ECP: Be On The Lookout For Conmen Masquerading As Investors

We have now evidence that ECP did not just carry out its criminal activities in Kenya alone but virtually in all the countries that Spencon had roots in. Documents within our hands show that Spencon capitalized on paying bribes in Uganda to Ugandan officials in order to be given favors during the award of tenders.

Before Taking You To Uganda

Before taking you to Uganda, let me just remind you that in 2006, ECP, through ECP Africa, invested approximately 15 million dollars in Spencon in the form of a convertible note. In 2009, ECP converted note to an equity interest of 38 percent in Spencon. The remaining shares were held by the sponsors of Spencon.

Spencon was a civil engineering and construction company established in 1979 that specializes in water supply & sewage systems, civil works including roads, bridges and buildings, and power and transmission lines. It was the leading indigenous construction company in East Africa, having completed over 200 major projects in the last decade for clients such as the World Bank, European Investment Bank, and the African Development Bank.

Trouble started in mid-2011 when ECP through their hired consultants, Andrew Ross and Steven Haswell conspired to wrestle control of the company from its founders by manipulating the findings of the internal audit reports with the sole aim of forcefully acquiring all of the company’s shares to “flip” the company at a huge profit. ECP seized full control of Spencon by illegally transferring 60 percent of the sponsors’ shares to itself.

Unknown to Spencon, ECP was in secret negotiations with, amongst others, one UAE based competitor who had expressed interest in acquiring the company.

ECP had offered to sell 100 percent of the company’s shares. Fortunately, this did not go through as the remaining Spencon founders blocked it through a court order. Had this greedy plan gone through, ECP would have yielded a 200 percent + profit – the case is still in court.

READ: Con Investors Use Dubious Means To Want To Take Over Spencon

Back To Uganda

According to the documents we have, ECP has engaged in a systematic violation of all rules and regulations that govern the doing of business in most of the East African Countries and used Spencon as a conduit to carry out their dirty work.

We have evidence that bribes have been paid to government officials in Uganda, with a strong likelihood of similar payments in other countries such as Kenya, Tanzania, Sudan, and Rwanda. Most of the bribes by ECP were paid between the years 2014 and 2015.

It is estimated that in the year 2014 alone, more than two million dollars in bribes were paid in Uganda with a similar amount being made in the year 2015.

For years, even though bribery was customary in the East African Region and was often required by officials, the custom was condemned in Spencon. Former employees we interviewed said before the coming of ECP, Spencon would rather lose a tender than pay a bribe to a government official.

When they took control of Spencon, ECP not only re-introduced the practice but made bribe payments of unprecedented amounts without giving a damn of the consequences or how that would paint them.

It is estimated that since taking over Spencon, ECP paid bribes amounting to 30 percent of all monies received from the projects done in Uganda.

READ: Africa Eye by BBC Unearths the Reason behind Spencon’s Bankruptcy

When Spencon Died

When Spencon died, there are people who lost more than the owners of the company. There are people whose lives have never been the same since the collapse of Spencon. We never talk about these people because they are always suffering in silence. These are the FORMER EMPLOYEES.

There are people who used to work with Spencon who ran mad when their source of livelihood was destroyed by ECP. Some died of depression, high blood pressure, and heart attack from the news they received. Families were broken, kids dropped out of school. It simply became messy, noisy with casualties.