AfriForum Steps Into the Working on Fire Tender Dumpster

By Garth Calitz

The court battle over South Africa’s Working on Fire programme may have appeared to have reached a finality when the Pretoria High Court cleared the way for Tefla Group to take over the R1.8-billion contract, but it may not be over.

While Working on Fire/Kishugu has already failed in its urgent attempt to stop the transition, AfriForum is now pursuing a different route — one that could potentially expose the procurement record behind the controversial award. And for Kishugu Aviation, the consequences could be substantial if Tefla remains the successful contractor.

The issue is no longer simply who won the tender. It is becoming a question of who will actually provide the aircraft, aviation expertise and operational capability behind South Africa's national aerial firefighting system.

On 13 May 2026, AfriForum submitted a formal application under the Promotion of Access to Information Act (PAIA) to the Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment (DFFE).

The organisation wants access to the documentation surrounding the appointment of Tefla Group as the new Working on Fire service provider, as well as records relating to the previous Kishugu Joint Venture arrangement. AfriForum's interest is straightforward: how was Tefla assessed, and on what evidence did the department conclude that the company was capable of delivering a highly specialised national wildfire-management programme?

That question becomes particularly uncomfortable when aviation enters the picture. Aerial firefighting is not something that can simply be acquired from a catalogue once a contract has been awarded. It requires suitable aircraft, pilots, maintenance organisations, engineering support, operational bases, logistics, specialist firefighting equipment, aviation management systems and personnel with experience of operating in some of the most demanding conditions imaginable.

AfriForum says it was concerned that Tefla appeared not to possess the specialist expertise, personnel, equipment and operational infrastructure required to undertake the programme. It has, however, acknowledged that without the underlying evaluation records it cannot yet determine whether the department properly assessed those issues. That is precisely why the PAIA application matters.

According to AfriForum, the department said an award letter had been issued to Tefla on 8 April and accepted by the company, but that there was no binding contract because a Service Level Agreement had not yet been concluded. The department therefore declined to provide the requested procurement records.

AfriForum has now pursued an internal PAIA appeal and says it is prepared to exhaust its legal remedies, including approaching the courts if necessary. AfriForum is not currently asking the court to declare Tefla's tender invalid. It is attempting to obtain the information that would allow the public — and potentially the courts — to determine whether the procurement process was properly conducted. Should the internal appeal fail, a subsequent High Court application compelling disclosure could potentially put the evaluation record into the public domain.

The documents AfriForum is seeking could potentially answer several questions that have so far remained largely matters of competing allegations.

Among them:

• What did Tefla actually offer?

• What aviation capability did it demonstrate in its bid?

• What aircraft and aviation infrastructure were identified?

• Who was responsible for providing that capability?

• Was subcontracting contemplated in the original bid?

• How did the evaluation committee score Tefla's technical capability?

• Were concerns raised by technical or quality-assurance evaluators?

• What financial and operational capacity was demonstrated?

These are not academic questions.

DFFE's own tender records identify Tefla Group as the successful bidder for tender DFFE-T041, with an award value of R1,801,735,586.61. This is a national programme that directly affects wildfire response across South Africa.

The Kishugu Group and its Working on Fire operation have been deeply embedded in South Africa's wildfire-management system for years. Kishugu Aviation has supplied the specialist aerial firefighting capability, with helicopters and other aircraft operating alongside ground crews. Kishugu describes its aviation operation as the air wing supporting Working on Fire's ground teams, with aircraft, pilots and specialist aerial teams working with fire-management agencies around the country.

The Working on Fire/Kishugu operation has also maintained a substantial national footprint. Court papers cited by the Mail & Guardian described approximately 5,700 EPWP workers and aviation, firefighting and disaster-response infrastructure spread across all nine provinces. If Tefla remains the successful contractor, that structure changes.

DFFE has already confirmed that Tefla is the successful bidder following the court-directed re-evaluation, and the department's tender records show the award. The Pretoria High Court subsequently dismissed Kishugu/Working on Fire's urgent attempt to prevent implementation. In other words, Kishugu cannot simply rely on its long history with Working on Fire to retain the programme.

Perhaps the most intriguing possibility is that Kishugu could ultimately lose the prime contract while continuing to provide some of the aviation capability. Recent reporting has raised claims that Tefla may subcontract a substantial portion of the aerial firefighting operation to Kishugu Aviation, potentially involving an aviation component reportedly worth around R650 million annually. DFFE, however, has said it was not aware of a concluded subcontracting agreement between Tefla and Kishugu Aviation.

If this deal ever happens, it would resemble a government tender plot twist straight from a sitcom. Imagine this: the company that failed the national contract might become the sidekick, providing special skills to the very company that secured the win. It's like a strange buddy comedy!

What happens to Kishugu's aviation operation?

If Tefla remains the prime contractor, Kishugu faces several possible scenarios.

1. Kishugu becomes a subcontractor

This would arguably be the least disruptive operational option. Even if it reeks of invoice shuffling to enrich the connected few.

Tefla would remain the prime contractor responsible to DFFE, while Kishugu Aviation could provide aircraft, pilots, maintenance and specialist aerial firefighting services under a subcontract. That would allow the country to retain much of the existing aviation capability while changing the prime contractor.

Kishugu would no longer control the overall Working on Fire programme; it would be a service provider to the new contractor. That could have significant implications for commercial margins, operational control, procurement and long-term investment in the aviation fleet. And of course net a healthy profit for Tefla directors, some of whom have been accused of misusing political connections

2. Kishugu walks away from Working on Fire

If no subcontracting arrangement is reached, Kishugu could ultimately be forced to redeploy its aviation assets elsewhere. That could mean pursuing contracts with provincial governments, municipalities, private fire-protection associations, forestry companies and other commercial customers, possibly abroad.

Kishugu Aviation already has experience working with a wide range of disaster-management and fire-protection organisations, so the company would not necessarily disappear from the aerial firefighting market. But the loss of the national Working on Fire relationship would represent a major structural change, and with the Western Cape fire season about to begin, could spell disaster.

3. Kishugu challenges the process further

The May court ruling did not necessarily extinguish every possible legal avenue relating to the procurement. Working on Fire's urgent interdict was dismissed, but the broader history of the tender includes the original judicial review that resulted in the first award being set aside.

The original dispute centred on the fairness of the procurement process, and Working on Fire subsequently argued that DFFE had materially altered the procurement arrangements by moving from the original five-year implementation model towards a shortened two-year arrangement. DFFE disputed that interpretation.

The question now is whether further litigation is commercially worthwhile for Kishugu. That calculation becomes much harder once the contract is being implemented.

Thousands of firefighters, support personnel and programme staff have historically been linked to the operation. The transition therefore potentially affects not only aircraft and pilots but an enormous network of bases, vehicles, equipment, training systems, operational procedures and experienced personnel. DFFE has said transitional arrangements are intended to minimise disruption and protect EPWP employment. But transferring a national wildfire operation is rather more complicated than changing the name on the invoice.

The real test will come when the first serious fire seasons expose whether the new structure can reproduce the speed, coordination and aviation response that has been developed over many years.

AfriForum's PAIA could be the wildcard

The courts have so far dealt largely with the legality of the procurement and whether the existing Working on Fire arrangement could continue.

AfriForum is asking a different question:

Show us the paperwork!

If it obtains the full evaluation record, the public could finally see how the bidders were assessed and how Tefla emerged from the re-evaluation process. If those documents show that Tefla was properly evaluated, demonstrated the required capability and complied with the tender requirements, the controversy may eventually fade.

But if the documents reveal material inconsistencies — particularly around technical capability, aviation resources, financial capacity, scoring, or the way the procurement was altered or interpreted — AfriForum could find itself holding information capable of supporting a much more substantial legal challenge. That would be a very different fight.

The irony of the situation

The government wants to replace a long-established operator with a new prime contractor in the name of a new procurement process. Yet if Tefla ultimately requires Kishugu's aircraft, aviation personnel and specialist expertise to make the programme work, the incumbent may not disappear at all. It could simply move from being the operator to being the supplier; this smacks of corruption.

Meanwhile, AfriForum is trying to establish whether the government decided on a properly informed and transparent basis in the first place. And until those records are released, the public is left with a rather uncomfortable question:

If Tefla is fully capable of running Working on Fire, why should the evidence behind that conclusion be so difficult for the public to see?

For Kishugu, the answer could determine much more than the future of a government contract. It could determine whether South Africa's largest specialist aerial firefighting capability remains at the centre of the national wildfire system — and whether Kishugu does so as the captain of the operation, or merely as the company supplying the aircraft.

For now, AfriForum is still trying to get through the paperwork door.

If that door eventually opens, the next fire may be in the tender documents rather than on the mountainside.