Over half a million travellers were processed in and out of South Africa, without any glitches, at all national ports of entry, by the Home Affairs Department’s Immigration services during the Easter Weekend, beginning from Thursday 28 March to 01 April 2013.

This comes within the context of the recent directives of Minister of Home Affairs, Naledi Pandor for the department to deploy extra personnel and increase working hours at all national ports of entry-land, sea and air- ports to deal with expected high traveller volumes during Easter weekend. These efforts were complimented by the visits of Minister Pandor and Director-General Mkuseli Apleni to Beitbridge and Lebombo ports of entry respectively on Thursday 28 March 2013.

Working together with other state agencies such as SARS, Customs, SAPS and SANDF , a total of 273 888 arrivals and 312 352 departures were recorded and processed on the country’s Movement Control System , a legacy of 2010 FIFA World Cup, and deployed in all major ports of entry across the country during the Easter Weekend.

The top five SADC countries whose nationals were processed during the same period are: Lesotho 88227; Zimbabwe 77277; Swaziland 50492; Botswana 49500 and Mozambique 44414. On the other hand the top three European nationals processed in the same period were : UK 17072; USA 8951 and Germany 8183 with nationals from China and India accounting for 3676 and 3249 respectively.

The ports of entry with the highest volumes of travellers processed included the OR Tambo International Airport, Beitbridge, Lebombo, Ficksburg and Oshoek border gates. (South Africa’s Department of Home Affairs/ Ronnie Mamoepa)