The City of Tshwane Metropolitan Municipality has suffered a setback in its attempts to interdict several private firefighting service providers from offering their services to members of the public.
In September 2024, the City of Tshwane (CoT) together with the provincial and national departments of cooperative governance and traditional affairs (COGTA) launched a legal application to have Fidelity SecureFire and Sinoville Firefighting Association interdicted from offering private firefighting services.
At the time the CoT also pointed fingers at the Laudium Disaster Management (LDM) for providing such services unlawfully.
Although LDM were not cited as a respondent in the court proceedings, the CoT named them in a press release earlier this year as one of those services that were operating outside of the Fire Brigade Act.
At the time, LDM briefly suspended their operations and only after receiving legal advice did they restart their services.
On the 1 August 2025, Sinoville Firefighting launched an interlocutory application in the Pretoria High Court challenging the mandate of Motsoeneng Bill Attorneys to act on behalf of the CoT and the provincial and national COGTA departments.
In a judgment handed down subsequently, the high court ruled that the legal representatives were not properly mandated to act against the private firefighting organisations.
The interlocutory application was launched to challenge the right of the city’s attorneys to act on behalf of the CoT and provincial and national government departments.
The court found that the attorneys were not properly mandated to act for the applicants and their attempts to remedy such defect was sloppy at best.
The attorneys were not able to produce a power of attorney to show they were authorised to act on behalf of the provincial and national government departments.
The court ordered the CoT to pay punitive legal costs of the Sinoville Firefighters.
Motsoeneng Bill Attorneys were paid in so far as is severable, the costs of Sinoville Firefighters out of their own pockets in relation to the application brought by the provincial and national COGTA departments.
Although the main issues and merits of the dispute between the CoT and private firefighters are yet to be heard at a later stage, the loss of the interlocutory application by the CoT is a big blow and holds bright hopes that services like those of the LDM will be able to continue indefinitely, at least for the foreseeable future.
Legal representatives for the LDM have welcomed the latest court decision as a positive step and remain optimistic that the services provided by private firefighters will not be curtailed going forward.
