{UAH} Spencon: Inside the collapse of an African construction giant

In July 2015, two British bosses looked out from their new Nairobi offices over an empty patch of land and decided to build a golf green.

Andrew Ross and Steven Haswell hired a consultant from one of Kenya's leading golf clubs. Trees were ripped up and replaced by bunkers and the smooth playing green was laid and nourished by a sprinkler system.

"How cool is this?" wrote Haswell in an email home. "We'll have chipping area, putting green, bunker and driving net."

Ross and Haswell were in Nairobi on a rescue mission: to save the struggling Kenyan construction giant Spencon. They had been appointed as directors of the company by US investment firm Emerging Capital Partners (ECP), which had in 2006 and 2007 invested a total of $15m in Spencon - including $1.5m of British government aid money designed to boost the Kenyan economy and create jobs.

But Ross and Haswell did not succeed in saving Spencon. According to thousands of leaked company emails, messages, and documents obtained by Africa Eye, the two British bosses appear to have engaged in a pattern of highly questionable business practices as they tried to turn the company around. They now stand accused of allegedly working with a convicted criminal to defraud banks of millions of dollars, of implicitly threatening to sell out business partners to notorious Kenyan gangsters, and of making potentially illegal cash payments.

This is the story of the 18 months Ross and Haswell spent in charge of Spencon before the company went bust, leaving hundreds of Kenyans out of work, some already missing months of pay.

Nancy Ntinu, Spencon's former head of HR, took Africa Eye on a tour of the now abandoned golf green built by Ross and Haswell.

"Having a golf course for a company that is insolvent, on the verge of financial distress, that just doesn't add up," she said as she walked on the overgrown putting area.

"It was a mockery for Kenyan employees to watch this lawn being watered on a daily basis because these two gentlemen wanted to play golf."

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-52126563?SThisFB&fbclid=IwAR3snKcB1lVcRzUHaYcpb911RvWBCQutommHRPsQ2x4TXqSLTje-eTECuaQ

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"When a man is stung by a bee, he doesn't set off to destroy all beehives"

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