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 1 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 88 227; Zimbabwe 77 277; Swaziland 50 492; Botswana 49 500 and Mozambique 44 414. On the other hand the top three European nationals processed in the same period were : UK 17072; USA 8 951 and Germany 8 183 with nationals from China and India accounting for 3 676 and 3 249 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.
