Hours of opening reduced Home Affairs Cape Town

Arrived at Barrack St Dept of Home Affairs at 2.45pm today to apply for our child's passport. They are supposed to be open until 3.30pm. We were not allowed to enter the building. Told that they cannot process more applications. We were told to come back at 8am another day, but children are at school during the week and Home Affairs is now CLOSED on Saturdays. What to do? Notice on the door says they are very busy during the "school holiday period". Holidays were over weeks ago! As usual, the tax-paying public are at the mercy of these bureaucrats and their nonsensical "rules". Very frustrating.