Tut Gatluak, presidential head of National Transitional Committee Credit | Gore Anthony/SSBC

A group of traders who claim to have been supplying food items to several cantonment sites are now demanding payment of more than 160 million US Dollars from the National Transitional Committee.

One of the disgruntled traders who wanted to be only identified as Henry for safety, spoke to Eye Radio yesterday.

According to Henry, they were contracted by the National Transitional Committee in 2019 to supply food cantonment sites.

He said there are nearly 50 traders who have supplied the government with food items.

According to traders, they have supplied food and other items to cantonment sites in Juba, Torit, Ashwa, and Kelinda in Yei.

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 deliveries made.

Henry says after the government gave the committee $20 million in June 2020, they were only paid $1 million, which he said was not enough.

As a result, Henry said, some of them had their businesses collapsed.

“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.

“The money to be paid is 164 million US Dollars. We have been appealing to Tut for the last three years and he is not paying us. We are demanding to be paid so that we get back to work again.”

Henry accused the leader of NTC of avoiding them after several failed attempts to meet him.

The National Transitional Committee is the body charged with supervising the implementation of the 2018 revitalized peace deal.

However, attempts to reach the presidential advisor’s office for comment were not successful.