18 September 2023
It’s an astounding achievement: Old Hiltonian and Mayor of the uMngeni Local Municipality has been named on the TIME100 Next List of the World’s Rising Stars.
Describing the rationale behind the 100 Next List, TIME wrote: “A great magazine and a great media company should not just reflect the present, it should push us forward, showing what is possible as well as what society’s future and future leaders will look like. That is our ambition for TIME100 Next, our annual franchise recognising the rising leaders in health, climate, business, sports, the arts and more.”
The list, which is divided into five categories – artists, phenoms, innovators, leaders and advocates – was compiled from research and reporting by TIME’s editors and correspondents across the world. Then, meetings were held weekly to decide who the 100 would be.
Facebook – Chris Pappas
Pappas, just 32 years of age, has been invited to New York to attend a networking dinner with the other 99 leaders named on the TIME100 Next List in October. He’s hoping a sponsor will help to get him there.
Given his remarkable achievements in a short space of time, his inspirational leadership, and the hope he brings to so many, he will surely find the support he seeks.
TIME on Pappas
Of Pappas, TIME wrote: “Since taking office as mayor of uMngeni, South Africa, in November 2021, Chris Pappas has managed to balance the municipality’s budget for the first time in over a decade and added 175 new homes to the electricity grid. It’s an impressive track record made possible by penny-pinching measures like a reduction in hiring.
“His election itself was an unusual feat, in part because he’s a white, gay, Zulu-speaking politician, in a municipality that is three-quarters Black in a country where most people vote along racial lines. But Pappas crossed those divides to speak to people in their own language, and won votes by emphasizing small but attainable improvements to daily life and municipal services above standard political loyalty.”
Pappas remains a popular figure within the municipality across all racial groups. His hard work and hands-on approach to his job have done much more than balance the books. Something as simple as a visual appraisal of the municipality’s surrounds, to those who know it, reveals a cleaner, better functioning community, which has resulted in its inhabitants feeling a greater pride in being a part of it.
Responsibility
Interviewed by The Independent on Saturday, Pappas said: “In government, you are responsible for the good and the bad. You are responsible for implementing and oversight.”
He added: “If South Africans are able to access good quality services, you empower them to be able to make decisions that can lead to development and progress and thus, the accumulation of generational wealth and assets.”
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