It is our firm view that the declaration of this day as a public holiday will enable voters to exercise their democratic right to vote as enshrined in our Constitution.

In preparing for the election we want to equip all our people with their ID documents.

We would like to place it on record that the department has never at any stage placed any embargo in the issuing of passports and has not run out of paper in anyway.

We are still managing to issue passports but the number is a minimum.

We have therefore decided that affected South Africans departing or arriving through our ports of entry, attempting to use a foreign passport, will be issued with a warning giving them three months to obtain a...

We have deported more than 200 yesterday (Tuesday) by chartered flight.

This day will enable voters to exercise their democratic right.

We deport people by air from time to time.

Ordinarily at this time of year we do have an increased number of people crossing the border to their respective countries and this does cause some congestion.

There was a lot of traffic yesterday (Monday) with people returning from holiday.