The awarding of multiple leases to each of five bidders in the historic mining town of Pilgrim's Rest, in Mpumalanga, has cast suspicion over its tender process.
Many of the successful bidders are also alleged not to have start-up capital or the relevant business licences.
This comes after the Mpumalanga department of public works, roads and transport gave 17 tenants until the end of the month to leave, to make space for others.
While the tenants - some of whom have run businesses for 20 to 30 years - tendered for their leases in November, the department told them only on Friday that they would be evicted.
The list of awarded tenders shows that Matletle Construction and Projects has been awarded five leases, to run Mrs Mac's Shop, Pilgrim's Pantry, the Pilgrim's Rest Golf Course, The Daisy and the Pilgrim's Rest Caravan Park.
Timbhulu Construction and Projects has been awarded leases for Mona Cottage, The Vine and Chaitow's Restaurant.
Urizima 83 cc will occupy Pilgrim's Place and the Leather Shop. Mangwanyane Trading landed the leases for the only petrol station in the town, Highwayman's Garage, and Scott's Cafe.
The DA in the province has expressed concern over the entire bid allocation process and has called on Mpumalanga premier David Mabuza to launch an investigation, saying the process was "rigged".
The party's provincial leader, Anthony Benadie, said it was also concerned by claims that many successful bidders "in fact do not have the required capital to start up businesses in the premises they have been awarded".
He said it was impossible for a company to put up enough capital to start five businesses in one month, saying this would be "a miracle".
The chairman of the Pilgrim's Rest Chamber of Business, Marius Brummer, who lost the bid for the Highwayman's Garage, said Mangwanyane did not have the necessary capital or licences to run the petrol station.
He said directors of the firm had asked him to help them run the business "because they definitely do not have the capital".
"You also need to have a site licence and a retail licence and those people do not have that. These [licences] are in my name," he said.
"By law, to purchase and retail fuel, you need a licence from the Department of Energy and [Mangwanyane] definitely does not have that."
Brummer said he had stock to the value of R250000 in the shop and up to R300000 in fuel.
He had to give notice to his 11 staff members and said the chances of the new owners employing his staff were "nil".
The department's spokesman, David Nkambule, said yesterday he could not immediately respond to questions sent to the department as staff would need to gather the relevant information first.
