White Zulu mayor: making a huge difference to his disillusioned constituents

The difference is so stark when compared to other South African cities and towns that it’s impossible not to notice.

uMngeni local municipality in KwaZulu-Natal is clean and tidy, and the brooms that swept it all were mayor Chris Pappas and his deputy, Sandile Mnikathi.

The White Zulu of Midlands

The “White Zulu of the Midlands” was voted into office last November, and the pair has become poster pin-ups for positive change and hope in the country.

They are youthful and energetic agents of change. Pappas turned 32 this month, and Mnikathi is 26 years old.

Give it a handful of years, and the twosome may end up leading their party into a larger piece of governing action.

It feels like a winning bet. They are the “get your hands dirty” kind of political leaders South Africans want.

The kind that doesn’t tweet reportage and opposition alone but rather solves problems. And that’s what’s happening across all 1 550 square kilometres of the municipality.

The Citizen experienced this dynamic duo first-hand on a visit that stretched from Nottingham Road through to rural villages and Howick.

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‘We have a lot to do’- and they’re excited to get it done

Pappas said: “We have a lot to do, and we’re excited to get it done.

“But there has to be a balance in what we do. There’s the maintenance or developmental things we must get done, and then the economic ones.

“The developmental interventions are those where we take previously disadvantaged or underdeveloped communities and try to improve their living standards.”

At a tiny village near Nottingham Road, we stop. It looks like many other villages, built in a cascading fashion down an embankment.

But the difference is: there’s a freshly tarred road which runs through it, winding down and connecting the village to the main road.

Mnikathi drove the project home after it spent years on ice under the previous council. “It’s all about getting things done,” he said.

Housing projects get priority

Through the rolling hills of the Midlands, between Howick and Nottingham Road, there’s a dirt track which leads off to an informal settlement behind a logging company.

Several families call it home, and the land belongs to the business owner, who is now working with the mayoral pair to help improve living conditions for the residents.

But there are hurdles in service delivery of this kind. The district council is an extra layer of local government slid in above local municipalities.

Pappas thinks it’s a waste of money, but it is responsible for big-ticket items like sanitation and water.

The uMgungundlovu district council made a gestural contribution to the residents of the logging shanty town by installing a few taps and JoJo tanks.

Only two of the five taps work, and half the water tanks were empty when we visited. There’s no electricity available.

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Solar power lighting for water points

To make life safer while pressuring the district to make good on its housing scheme for the residents, Pappas and Mnikathi had solar-powered lighting installed around the water point to add an element of safety and night-time visibility.

Eventually, the residents will be moved to one of eight housing developments in the area.

Pappas and company have already laid out storm-water drains and the infrastructure the local council is responsible for.

Now it’s a waiting game. And citizens in desperate living conditions wait for the district council to get its act together.

Pappas, fluent in isiZulu, spent a lot of time at the settlement listening to residents while they filled containers with water.

He doesn’t speak English to his Zulu constituents; he talks delivery in their language.

He seems obsessed with it: “I think it lies with where your passion lies. You know, if we are serious about tangibly changing people’s lives, then we can do it.”

ALSO READ: DA nominates 26-year-old Mnikathi for uMngeni deputy mayor

Pappas works with waste pickers

There is a legion of waste pickers at the Curry’s Post landfill site on the far end of Howick. Trucks and bakkies drive in loads of waste with mundane regularity.

The waste pickers chase down these vehicles in a race to get to the treasure chests of recyclables first.

It’s an informal set of entrepreneurs that are a familiar sight across urban SA with their white canvas-covered pull trolleys.

Picking waste can be a decent living, said Pappas. Presently, there’s no mechanism for pickers to benefit as much as they should from their trade.

He is on a mission to help them get more organised, with plans to set up a central recycling centre in Howick.

That’s just one of the initiatives up his sleeve. The council has now introduced replacement yellow metal on the dump, retiring a 32-year-old bulldozer.

A proper access road up the mountain of trash was also graded, and Pappas wants a weighbridge installed to manage what and how much gets dumped there.

Getting local tourism back on track

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On Pappas and Mnikathi’s long to-do list is getting tourism back up to speed. Several million rands had been earmarked by the district council for the development of a Howick Falls precinct, but that, too, never materialised.

He said: “We have set a deadline for September for the district to finally set a development in motion.

“If they don’t, we are going ahead with a public-private partnership we already lined up.”

The community’s interests weigh heavily on his mind, but it’s also what gets him going.

Politics should be the vehicle which makes it all happen, he said. It can also serve up its own set of challenges if not managed from the outset.

Pappas said: “The idea that politics is separate from what we do as communities are, I think, what led us to where we are, the problems we have at the moment.

“Politics, in its simplest form, is the management of resources for the benefit of communities.

“Sandile and I are both from the area. We grew up here, and we went to school here. So we have a passion for the people in the communities we live with.

“But we also know we operate within a political system, so you have to strike that balance.

“But that doesn’t mean one is a hindrance to the other. It’s making sure politics works for the community.”

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