Juba, South Sudan
January 7, 2022—A group of traders, who claim to have been supplying food items to number of cantonment sites are now demanding payment of more than 160 million US Dollars from the National Pre-transitional Committee led by Hon.Tut Gatluak Manime.
One of the disgruntled traders, who requested to be identified only as Henry for fear of reprisal, narrates the frustration of traders, who have tried on numerous occasions, to pursue Hon. Tutkew to pay their dues.
In a statement seen by Nyamilepedia Henry said they were contracted by the National Transitional Committee in 2019 to supply food and other basic necessities to cantonment sites.
According to Henry there are nearly 50 traders, who have supplied the government, providing food and other items to cantonment sites in Juba, Torit, Ashwa, and Kelinda in Yei; however, they haven’t been paid so far.
“We have been supplying them since they formed this NPTC, until they changed it to NTC. We have been supplying them food item but in terms of payment, they don’t pay us,” Henry said.
“Last month, we went to Tut’s office and he promised us that he was going to pay us, today we went to his office and they couldn’t even allow us to go inside. The big man himself – Tut is hiding from us, is not coming to his office”, Henry added.
They say they delivered the food items between July 2019 and May 2020 but since then, they have not been paid for the numbers of supplies.
Henry says after the government gave the committee $20 million in June last year, they were only paid $1 million, which he said was not enough to cover the whole loan.
As a result, Henry said, some of them had their businesses collapsed and therefore, they are demanding that their remaining dues must be paid for them to continue running their businesses.
