ACCRA, 1 August (IRIN) - For well over a year, more than 80 percent of the sewage generated by the two million people of Ghana's sea-front capital Accra has been dumped in the ocean, untreated.

And a few kilometres along the coast down current, fishermen pull their catch from the water for sale across the country. Experts warn of an impending health disaster.

"We are sitting on a time bomb," Kweku deGraft-Johnson, senior scientist at Ghana's Water Research Institute, told IRIN.

The largest sewage treatment site in Ghana's most populous city, Accra, fell out of service in March 2005 and there still is no timetable for a replacement facility, city officials have confirmed.

Without the Achimota treatment site functioning, about 12,000 cubic metres per month, or more than 80 percent, of the sewage collected in Accra is dumped untreated into the Atlantic Ocean at the outer suburb of Korle Gonno, according to the waste management department's own figures.

The dumping threatens to damage the marine ecosystem, contaminate fish stocks, and increase the spread of water-borne diseases such as dysentery and cholera, according to deGraft-Johnson.

Plans to rehabilitate the Achimota site were cancelled last month, said John Appiah, deputy director of the Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA), the municipal authority in Accra. He said there is a conflict with a new road construction project, which authorities decided could not co-exist with the existing treatment site.

Officials are searching for land for a new treatment site outside Accra, said Appiah, and until then no timetable could be given.

He said the long delay in the decision was due to a reorganisation of the waste management department and the need to direct money toward staff who were laid off.

"It is not an acceptable international practice," Appiah told IRIN. "But it is a mighty ocean out there. As far as I am concerned, it doesn't do anything bad to anyone."

The United Nations estimates that at least five million deaths per year can be attributed to water-borne diseases, several times more than the number annually killed in wars around the globe.

The Public Health Department in Accra has repeatedly warned the mayor and assemblymen about the health risks from the dumping, said health officer Divine Sappor.

The mayor of Accra was unavailable for an interview.

Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) director Jonathan Allotey blamed the situation on poor planning.

"We are conscious of the problems that we find ourselves in," he said. "We know the relation between proper waste management and health. If we had planned well, we would have been ahead of the problem."

Allotey said that ultimately the responsibility for waste management lies with local government. He said the EPA is now pressuring districts around the country to create and implement waste management plans.

"It is a vicious cycle," said deGraft-Johnson. "It is the same government that is dumping the waste that is supposed to be protecting the environment. What will the AMA do if the EPA takes them to court? The resources have to come from government."

George Ahadzie, director of the environmental group Green Earth Organisation, said the waste dumping shows a lack of political will to address sewage treatment and a limited appreciation for the potential consequences of sewage dumping.

"If a country has protecting public health and the environment as a priority," said Ahadzie, "it will find the money to avoid such a situation."

The Achimota treatment site was initially closed more than a year ago for much-needed rehabilitation. Work was postponed due to a lack of financing, said city officials.

But funding for the new treatment site should not pose a problem because it has already been "earmarked", according to Appiah.

Disease-causing bacteria and viruses of human origin can persist for months in the intestine of fish and on the body surface or gills of fish and shellfish. Of particular concern, say scientists, are the micro-organisms that cause dysentery and skin, eye, nose, throat and ear infections.

Fishermen and swimmers expose themselves through direct contact with water, and the general population is exposed through fish consumption.