A Senior Economic Adviser to Ghana’s President has questioned the need for 44,000 drivers at the country’s Ghana Education Service (GES).

Dr Nii Moi Thompson said on Friday that he found it befuddling for a state institution like the GES to hire that many drivers.

He said he stumbled upon the information while working on certain documents concerning the public sector.

Speaking in an interview with Accra-based Citi FM, Dr Thompson, however, said his concerns must not be misinterpreted as suggesting that the 44,000 staff, if indeed, they were all Drivers with the GES, should be sacked.

Director of the Service, Aheto Tsegah, however, said he saw nothing wrong with that number of Drivers, adding that the GES is a nationwide institution, which employs the largest number of public sector workers–almost 300,000 teaching and non-teaching staff–and therefore needs that many Drivers for its operations.

He complained about the manner in which the Economist raised the matter in the media and wondered if it was intended to court disaffection for the Service.