Listen here.In April he told the country he was done, headed for the private sector. By July he'd changed his mind. Chris Pappas, the DA's rising star and mayor of the party's only municipality in KwaZulu-Natal, explains to Alec Hogg why nobody in his own caucus would take the job, what that says about the DA's succession problem, and why he thinks a 25 to 30% national showing is realistic for the party come November. Plus: Gayton McKenzie's R31 million World Cup bill, South32's big bet on copper, and the helium squeeze putting an obscure Free State gas field on the world's radar..Read the full transcript below.HeadlinesAlec Hogg: Hello, good day, and welcome. It's Monday, the twentieth of July 2026. I'm Alec Hogg, and I'm glad to have you with me for BizNews Edge.Today we've got Gayton McKenzie defending his World Cup travel bill, a breakthrough for South Africa's waste pickers, South32 betting its future on copper and zinc (with some good numbers today that sent the share price up 5%), and a global helium squeeze with an unlikely South African upside. Then my main conversation: Chris Pappas, mayor of uMngeni, who was about to leave the scene and go into the private sector, possibly a non-governmental organisation, and then decided to change his mind when nobody around him was prepared to stand. We'll bring you the focused part of that interview shortly.First up, the FIFA World Cup bill, or rather the one racked up by the Department of Sport, Arts and Culture, headed by Patriotic Alliance leader Gayton McKenzie. It's over R30 million. He's confirmed that, but he wants credit for transparency: he's published every rand of the roughly R31 million that taxpayers spent to ship his sizeable FIFA delegation, well over a hundred people, to Mexico and the United States.His personal bill, the sports minister tells us, was just over R1 million. The rest went on legends matches, hospitality suites, exhibition stands dressed up as nation branding, and tickets to the games themselves.That's all fair enough, except the minister then reached for the oldest trick in the political book: he accused the Democratic Alliance in the Western Cape of sending back more than R800 million in unspent housing money. Gayton doesn't miss a beat when it comes to staking his ground ahead of the 4 November election. He knows his constituency will be more angry about unbuilt houses than about him having, one would hope, a good time at the World Cup. Still, two wrongs don't make a right. The real question isn't whether McKenzie personally pocketed anything; nothing here suggests that he did. It's whether a cash-strapped state like ours should be underwriting exhibition soccer matches and networking sessions at all, and whether accounting for every cent is now doing duty for "we shouldn't have spent it."Next, a quietly important story out of Johannesburg. You've seen them on every street corner and at every landfill: the reclaimers, or waste pickers, who push trolleys piled high with plastic, cardboard and cans. They go out every week into neighbourhoods to properly recycle what most South Africans don't think twice about. Three organisations representing them have now teamed up with industry and a global funder to get these workers registered, and properly paid for what they collect. Ten thousand waste pickers will start the process; by year end they're hoping to reach 82,000 nationwide. It's a real test of whether South Africa can formalise and fairly reward work that's been done informally for decades, and whether formalisation grows the pool for everyone or simply benefits those already in the system.To mining news: South32 quietly delivered one of its strongest quarters, in results published this morning on SENS. It beat full-year production guidance across the board, and the share price rose nearly 5% as a result. But the real story is the pivot. New chief executive Matt Daly has used his first update to confirm South32 is exiting aluminium altogether, selling the business that includes the Hillside smelter in KwaZulu-Natal to Alcoa, in a deal that could be worth up to US$5.6 billion.What's left of South32, created when BHP Billiton spun off its South African and other international assets, will be a copper- and zinc-focused miner anchored by Sierra Gorda in Chile, where a new expansion should lift copper output by around 30%, and the Taylor project in Arizona, which is in the final stages of US permitting. Copper prices are up more than 40% year on year, which explains why miners including our own Anglo American love it, though it's fair to ask how much of Anglo is still "our own" with De Beers gone and Anglo American Platinum gone. Either way, South32 is betting its future on the metals the energy transition needs most, copper at the forefront.To close out the headlines: as we've been tracking on BizNews, Beijing has cracked down on helium exports, and today the Financial Times, our partners in London, gave it the full treatment, explaining that the squeeze on Beijing-controlled supply is disrupting Europe's chip and MRI supply chains just as Qatari output has effectively stopped for now. Here's the South African twist: Renergen's Virginia Gas Project, now under the NASDAQ- and JSE-listed ASP Isotopes following January's merger, sits on a helium concentrate ten times the global average. With Russian supply choked and Qatar hobbled by the conflict in the Middle East, ASP Isotopes has already locked in its first take-or-pay contract, backed by hundreds of millions in US and Standard Bank funding. There's still scepticism among many in South Africa, but when global scarcity bites, our backyard suddenly matters to Berlin, Beijing, Washington and beyond.Main interview: Chris Pappas, Mayor of uMngeniAlec Hogg: Let's get into today's main conversation. I spoke with Chris Pappas, mayor of uMngeni. It's lengthy, and fascinating, as conversations with Chris tend to be; he really is a class act. The full interview is in the Director's Cut, on BizNews Premium, or on YouTube for Members Only subscribers.In April, just a few months ago, Chris told the world he would not be standing for re-election as mayor of uMngeni, saying he was moving to the private sector, where he apparently had several offers. Someone with his profile and competence, having done a strong job in a municipality best known for Howick and Hilton, would be snapped up by any willing employer. But now he's changed his mind. I have no doubt the supporters who turned this primarily Zulu-speaking constituency into the DA's only controlled municipality in KwaZulu-Natal will be delighted, because, as you'll hear in this clip and the full interview, Chris has overseen quite a turnaround there. Here's our conversation.Alec Hogg: He was tipped as a rising star of the DA. Time magazine noticed him twice. He was the party's premier candidate in KwaZulu-Natal. By April this year, he told the public he was walking away from the uMngeni mayorship for a private sector opportunity. Now he's back, running for a second term. Mayor Chris Pappas joins me. Let's find out what gives.Well, Chris, you've got fans not just in the Howick and uMngeni region, but around the country. When you said you wouldn't run for mayor again and were leaving for a private sector position, there was a lot of unhappiness about it. What happened between April and July that changed your mind?Chris Pappas: Howzit, Alec. Nice to see you again, it's been a while. Firstly, there was no applicant for my position from my caucus, no natural successor. My caucus members said they weren't going to apply, no one wanted to contest me, so I'd need to apply. I don't want to use the word "sabotage," but there was a deliberate move to ensure the party had to reopen the process, because no one wanted to contest the position.From that came a discussion about what would happen, not just to the DA in the uMngeni council, but to the broader region. It's not just about politics, it's about business, social services, direction, stability. So whether it was friends and family, or the political party, my caucus, there was a discussion: what's the responsible thing to do for this area? Initially it was, I'll admit, a bit of a selfish decision. After fourteen years in politics, I wanted to go and do something else for a while, grow my skills elsewhere, gain experience elsewhere. But sitting down with people who have a genuine interest in the future of this region, and understanding the responsibility that comes with that, shaped my decision.Alec Hogg: Let's look ahead to 2029. If you're re-elected, and the suggestion is that your chances are pretty strong at the moment, do you have polling at a granular level on how high your chances of re-election are?Chris Pappas: The party at national level wouldn't poll a small municipality like ours, so we use the provincial trends they provide. But we also fund our own polling. Howick has a pool of retirees, some of whom are pollsters and statisticians, so we make use of that. I can't give you results yet, they're not complete; we ran them three months ago and should have them in the next couple of weeks, which will guide the final push toward the election.If we look at KwaZulu-Natal polling, there's definitely a shift in the province. I think after 2024 there's more appetite for people to change their vote. If we look at historical results for this area, we did significantly better on the provincial ballot than the national ballot in 2024, partly because the DA's premier candidate was from this area, and turnout was the highest in the province at more than 70%, which we think is also linked to having a local personality tied to the 2024 campaign. So polling will be out shortly, but provincial trends indicate quite a significant shift, specifically in the black electorate in KZN, but also the middle class in general.Alec Hogg: The John Steenhuisen disclosures scandal, call it what you will, is unlikely to affect you in uMngeni?Chris Pappas: I'm sure it will. You can't escape bad publicity entirely, and it does affect voter sentiment. I think it's still a fresh issue, and the party leadership, as they always do when something like this comes up, will try to claw back the more balanced narrative. Whenever these things break, the media jumps on the most dramatic part of the story, and slowly, as the party claws back the more centred narrative, voters tend to come back to the DA.The other thing is this is a local government election, and we're talking about a municipality where we're trying to protect residents from going back into the hands of the MK Party or the ANC. I think people can differentiate between voting for, say, John Steenhuisen, or Geordin Hill-Lewis, and voting for the DA here locally. There's definitely damage control to be done, but we can reassure our residents that you're not voting for national politics, you're voting to protect your local municipality, your roads, your refuse collection, and you still have time to consider your national vote if that's where you want to register any frustration with the DA.Alec Hogg: We've noticed emigration from poorly governed parts of the country to better governed parts. Are you seeing that in the Howick region?Chris Pappas: Absolutely. A lot of people move up from Pietermaritzburg to the Hilton area specifically, and a lot of people move from the inland "battlefields" area of KZN, Ladysmith, Estcourt, those areas, to Howick and uMngeni. There are also people moving from Johannesburg who find Cape Town and the Western Cape too expensive, looking for an affordable lifestyle with good education and a slower pace, and of course retirees. This is seen as a safe, functional space where people send their parents and grandparents; it's not "God's waiting room," it's a place for a better second chapter of life, and it's seen as safe, clean and functional.We've seen it in the building plans too. Looking at plans passed across the whole of KwaZulu-Natal, we passed the third-highest number of building plans of any municipality in the province, despite being only the 34th-biggest municipality by size. We passed more building plans than Pietermaritzburg, Newcastle, Port Shepstone, Ulundi and Ladysmith. That's because people are building, expanding and investing in this area, mostly residential.Alec Hogg: That's an extraordinary statistic, one worth looking at more closely nationally. Better governance seems to mean people have more security of tenure and are more comfortable investing. Looking ahead to 4 November, and given you won very narrowly last time, are you confident you'll have some kind of cushion this time?Chris Pappas: I do. I'm supposed to say that as a politician, that we'll do better and grow, but I think the numbers speak for themselves. The DA grew by roughly 2,500 votes, or 16,500 voters, between the 2021 local government election and the 2024 national election. Looking at where most of those votes came from, they were new votes, in peri-urban and township areas, and collectively across the municipality that added up.That shows the propaganda used against us in 2021 will be a lot harder to repeat, specifically in new voter markets. The ANC or MK can't credibly go to voters now and say the DA will bring back apartheid, take away their RDP houses, or stop their grants, and use those scare tactics, because they've had a DA government here for five years and those things haven't happened. What people can see is that, for the most part, things have got better. Our pitch is: look at what we've done. We promised you we'd show you a difference; we don't have to promise any more, we're showing you the results. Give us the opportunity to do more.Alec Hogg: We saw a historic by-election win recently in an all-black township where the DA won. Yours would arguably be more historic, given it's a very much Zulu-speaking ward by numbers. Do you think that momentum, speaking as Chris Pappas, not as a politician, will be reflected after the votes on 4 November, and if so, what kind of upside would you expect for your party?Chris Pappas: Generally, yes, in uMngeni.Alec Hogg: I think most people in uMngeni would say you've done a good job and residents will reward you for it. That's logical. But generally, around the country, is the DA still gathering momentum, and what would a good result look like in your opinion?Chris Pappas: Sure, speaking as Chris, I think yes, Alec. I don't think it'll be record-breaking, 50%, or even 35%, but I do think there's been a political mind shift in South Africa. The coalition government at national level has shown South Africans something different, a new political spectrum that can exist, and that old narratives aren't necessarily true for all political parties, not just the DA. I do think the DA will grow as a voter percentage. We do well at local government elections, that's where we're strongest, but there's also an emerging sentiment around the power of voting and the ability to change through votes, less tied to old allegiances along party, racial, ethnic or religious lines.So yes, I think the DA is going to do better. I'd say 25% to 30% is where the DA is heading in this election, a springboard to 2029, where I think there's a real opportunity for the DA to become the biggest party in South Africa, a 30%-plus party.Alec Hogg: That was Chris Pappas on why he's staying, what local government can actually get done, and what he's reading into the numbers ahead of the 4 November election. Honest to a fault, Mr Pappas, and you can see why those who voted for him, and those who live in the uMngeni area, are so fond of their mayor.That's BizNews Edge for today. Thank you for watching, and thank you for listening if you're catching this on the audio channels. For more, head over to biznews.com. I'm Alec Hogg, back again tomorrow. Until then, cheerio.