JOHANNESBURG, South Africa — David Coltart is an anomaly: the White mayor of Bulawayo, Zimbabwe’s second-largest city, placed in office by an overwhelmingly Black electorate.


A noted human rights lawyer, the 66-year-old Mr. Coltart has tangled with the ruling Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) for more than 40 years, representing people who had been tortured, abducted or had their relatives marched away by the army never to be seen again.


Mr. Coltart’s family has been in Africa since 1820 and he has engaged in opposition politics for close on three decades, as a member of parliament, a senator and as minister for education in a coalition government after the late President Robert Mugabe lost his majority in parliament in 2008.


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Now, as mayor of a city with a population of 1.3 million, his administration is struggling to pave roads, remove the trash, and get the water back in the taps.

“Not just flowing,” he says in an interview, “but drinkable as well.”


It won’t be a quick fix: Many of the dams built before ZANU-PF came to power in 1980 — when the country was still known as Rhodesia — have silted with mud. Illegal gold-mining in the catchment areas has loosened tons of soil which then washes downstream and into the dams. In 2023, a documentary by Al Jazeera claimed that President Emmerson Mnangagwa was linked to the illicit trade in gold, though the president denies the allegation.


A drought that has scorched the continent from Kenya to South Africa has made things worse. Winters here are dry and most of the rainfall happens in summer, but last year it was well below average. Meteorologists predict 2025 could be worse.


However, Zimbabwe is blessed with a number of major rivers, including the Zambezi — where the Victoria Falls creates the world’s largest curtain of water — and what author Rudyard Kipling called the “great gray greasy Limpopo,” which forms the border with South Africa.


Mr. Coltart wants to raise $140 million to build a dam on the Mzingwane River, a tributary of the Limpopo. The dam site is 42 miles southeast of Bulawayo and a feasibility study projected that it could supply up to 70% of the city’s demand — currently eight million gallons a day and set to double within the next decade.


The U.S. has no trade sanctions against Zimbabwe, but Congress has personal bans on several members of ZANU-PF, including Mr. Mnangagwa, who overthrew Mugabe in a 2018 coup. Elections before and after the change have been rated as neither free nor fair by observers from all Western nations, including the U.S., and human rights groups rank the country among the world’s worst offenders.


In March, Secretary of State Antony Blinken accused the government in Harare of having carried out “multiple cases of abductions, physical abuse and unlawful killings that have left citizens living in fear,” while Transparency International ranked Zimbabwe below such countries as Colombia or Pakistan in its most annual global corruption ranking.


It is in that uneasy context that Mr. Coltart contends the city council he has headed for just a year marks “a new beginning” for Bulawayo, and that financing for the dam will be under his direct control.


“We have to explain very clearly that this money is not for central government, but to improve the quality of life for millions of people,” Mr. Coltart told The Washington Times.

He has made a personal pledge to “account for every cent,” saying work on the project will be stopped if any attempt is made to divert the funds. 
“This money will be audited and the dam will create a vast number of jobs in an area where perhaps 90% of people are out of work.”

Water wars

The need to store more water is clear. Residents in Johannesburg and Cape Town have been warned (not for the first time) that neighboring South Africa is on a countdown to “Day Zero” when the taps will run dry.

But there are also environmental movements that strongly oppose holding back the water in rivers, saying it damages the ecosystem and causes havoc if the wall fails.


In recent months, four dams have collapsed in South Africa, damaging property and leaving hundreds of people homeless. In August, another in Sudan displaced an estimated 136,000 people.

Engineering groups say hundreds of reservoirs across the continent are in a hazardous state due to lack of repairs.

Bulawayo will be different, Mr. Coltart contends, using only the best engineers and highest grade of materials, one reason for the hefty $140 million price tag.


In recent years, funding for water projects has become more difficult due to the financial and reputational risk for investors, engineers and contractors, and a London court case scheduled for October could make things worse.


In 2015 the Mariana dam at a mine in Brazil — owned by two of the world’s largest companies, Vale, and its Australian partner BHP — suffered a breach that saw two billion cubic feet of water and mine waste engulf the nearby village of Bento Rodrigues. Nineteen people were killed and a vast area was affected by toxic mining sludge contained in the surging waters.

BHP and Vale are in discussions with the Brazilian authorities over a $25.7 billion settlement, but the companies also are facing a $45 billion-plus class action suit for victims filed in a London court in 2018. If successful, the payout would create a precedent large enough to redraw entirely the risk for any project designed to hold back water.

Former Brazilian diplomat Rubens Barbossa, the country’s ambassador to Washington from 1999 to 2004, warned of “a global fallout” for dam construction and investment if the class-action suit, set to be heard next month after lengthy legal delays, succeeds.


“The opportunism is striking,” he said, “with serious consequences for individuals and legal entities. If these actions continue, they will pose a threat to foreign investment and national interest.”


Mr. Coltart insists that nothing will stand in the way of his efforts to supply his constituents with the water they need.

“Risks are always there with a big development, but it would be tragic if any event damaged the chance of a project this important,” he said.


The sky remains a clear blue over Bulawayo, with not a cloud in sight. But the great rivers of Africa never stop their flow, from the Nile in Egypt to the Congo basin and the Limpopo with its tributary, the Mzingwane.


“With water we can develop more industry, the dam can serve as a resort, the community will be able to catch fish and drought will no longer be a threat,” said Mr. Coltart. But first he must find the money and assure investors that his new dam will be “safe, secure, and able to serve Bulawayo for years to come.”