Following the appearance of the management of the Uganda Civil Aviation Authority (UCAA) before a Parliamentary oversight committee on Tuesday, September 8, 2026, to respond to issues arising from the Auditor General’s report for the audit year ended December 31, 2025, there has been considerable public discussion about the procurement of a Volkan 6×6 Major Foam Tender at Shs 5.39 billion.
The debate is welcome, as Parliamentary oversight is an important part of ensuring accountability and value for money in public expenditure. However, for the public to fully appreciate the value of the equipment, it is important that comparisons are made on the basis of the vehicle’s intended purpose, technical specifications, certification, associated services and total procurement package, rather than simply comparing headline prices of different types of fire trucks found through general internet searches.
The Major Foam Tender procured for Entebbe International Airport is not an ordinary municipal or structural firefighting truck. It is a purpose-built Aircraft Rescue and Fire Fighting (ARFF) vehicle designed to maintain the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) Category 9 rescue and firefighting capability at an international airport. It incorporates specialized aviation firefighting, high-speed mobility, safety, rescue and performance systems specifically designed for responding to aircraft emergencies.
The vehicle is built on a custom 6×6 high-mobility chassis with a load rating of not less than 39 tones, while being required to accelerate from 0 to 80 kilometers per hour within 28 seconds and achieve a minimum top speed of 125 kilometers per hour.
It incorporates off-road suspension, differential locking, rear-axle steering and stringent stability and braking systems to enable rapid response on and off paved maneuvering areas. Moving a vehicle weighing approximately 39 tones at such speeds requires a high-output engine, heavy-duty automatic transmission and specialized vehicle engineering.
Its firefighting capability is equally specialized. The vehicle carries a minimum of 12,500 liters of water and 1,500 liters of foam and is fitted with a centrifugal firefighting pump capable of delivering not less than 9,000 liters per minute at 10 bars. The system also incorporates pump-and-roll capability and emergency manual Power Take-Off (PTO) engagement, allowing firefighting operations to continue while the vehicle is moving where required.
The truck further incorporates a remotely controlled roof turret capable of discharging 7,000 liters per minute with a throw of at least 90 meters, together with a remotely controlled bumper turret delivering at least 1,200 liters per minute with a throw of at least 70 meters.
It also has automatic foam proportioning, a 250-kilogram dry chemical powder system, under-truck protection nozzles and a windshield deluge system. These are not features normally found on conventional fire engines used for structural firefighting.
In addition, the vehicle incorporates aviation-specific technologies, including Forward-Looking Infrared (FLIR) and Driver Enhanced Vision Systems, a crash-protected composite crew cab, and seating integrated with Self-Contained Breathing Apparatus (SCBA). It also incorporates internationally certified steering, braking and occupant-protection systems.
These features are particularly important when firefighters are required to operate in the extremely challenging environment around a burning or damaged aircraft, where intense heat, smoke, aviation fuel, high-speed response and the possibility of secondary hazards can all be present.
The procurement cost also covers a wider package of goods and services beyond the vehicle itself. These include Factory Acceptance Testing, operator training for 30 firefighter/drivers, factory technical training for UCAA operators and maintenance personnel, technical manuals, manufacturer-authorized local after-sales support and spare-parts support over the vehicle’s design life.
The specifications of the Major Foam Tender are therefore fundamentally different from those of an ordinary fire truck. The procurement cost reflects a highly engineered, low-volume and specialized aircraft rescue and firefighting platform incorporating high-speed heavy-vehicle technology, aviation firefighting systems, multiple extinguishing agents, sophisticated electronic and safety systems, international certification, training and lifecycle support.
For this reason, the appropriate benchmark is a comparable Category 9 Major Foam Tender or ARFF vehicle of equivalent capacity and specification, rather than a conventional structural firefighting truck. A simple Google search can provide useful indicative information, but headline prices obtained in this manner cannot, on their own, provide a technically valid basis for determining whether a specialized aviation firefighting vehicle represents value for money.
The relevant technical and procurement information has since been shared with the oversight committee and is also being made available to the public to promote a better understanding of the equipment and the considerations behind its cost. It is also important to emphasize that the procurement went through a competitive process, which ultimately resulted in the selection of the lowest evaluated bidder.
Safety and security are fundamental pillars of aviation. The cost of meeting aviation safety standards can be significant because the consequences of inadequate preparedness for an aircraft accident can be catastrophic, potentially involving the loss of hundreds of lives and destruction of aircraft and other infrastructure worth millions of dollars.
It is partly for this reason that ICAO establishes stringent safety and security requirements for Member States and regularly audits their compliance through internationally recognized audit programmes. Specialized aviation safety equipment must therefore be assessed in the context of the safety risks it is designed to mitigate and the standards it is required to meet. It cannot always be meaningfully compared with equipment designed for routine firefighting in other environments.
Uganda’s continued compliance with international aviation safety standards has contributed to the country’s strong performance in ICAO assessments. In the ICAO Universal Safety Oversight Audit Programme – Continuous Monitoring Approach (USOAP-CMA) conducted in Uganda in 2023, the country attained an Effective Implementation score of 72.64 percent, above the regional average of 55 percent and the global average of 69.4 percent.
Similarly, Uganda performed strongly in the ICAO Universal Security Audit Programme – Continuous Monitoring Approach (USAP-CMA) conducted in 2024, attaining a score of 81.6 percent, significantly above the regional average of 64.5 percent and the global average of 72.36 percent.
These results demonstrate the strength of Uganda’s aviation safety and security oversight systems and reinforce international confidence in the country’s commitment to maintaining high aviation standards. Uganda has also, to date, not been issued a Significant Safety Concern or Significant Security Concern through ICAO audit processes. This is an important indicator of the effectiveness of the systems and controls that have been put in place across the aviation sector.
Maintaining this level of performance requires continued investment in specialized equipment, infrastructure, technology, personnel and systems.
Uganda’s aviation industry is strategically important to the country, particularly as a landlocked nation whose connectivity to international markets depends significantly on a safe and efficient air transport system.
UCAA welcomes oversight and scrutiny because accountability, transparency and value for money are essential. At the same time, discussions about aviation investments are best served by complete technical information and by comparisons with equipment of equivalent purpose and specification. In aviation, the ultimate measure of safety equipment is not simply its purchase price. It is its ability to perform when lives depend on it.
For an international airport handling thousands of passengers every day, maintaining the required rescue and firefighting capability is not a luxury. It is a fundamental safety obligation.