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The Chief Executive Officer of the defunct Ghana@50 Secretariat, Dr Charles Wereko-Brobby, yesterday had his day with the commission probing the activities of the secretariat and made it official that he had used his personal fortune of GH�200,000 (�2 Billion) to pre-finance aspects of the Golden Jubilee celebration. He also declared that contrary to public perception, the country raked in about GH�36 million profit from the Ghana@50 celebration and the African Union (AU) Summit, concluding that the jubilee celebration had been a huge success for which the government and the people of Ghana needed to commend him and his staff for a good job done. Dr. Wereko-Brobby told the commission that apart from his personal money, he also raised an overdraft from Prudential Bank which was expended on projects and explained that he had to take those steps because of the delay in the release of money for the celebration. At the end, he said, it took him several months to reclaim his money which was paid to him without interest. In all, he said the National Planning Committee (NPC), which was assisted by the Ghana@50 Secretariat to execute the programmes for the celebration, approved a budget of $75 million for it. He said although there had been an approved budget for the celebration, the government did not provide any money at the time of the operations of the secretariat to execute the programmes and plans for the celebration. Dr Wereko-Brobby said the first tranche of the approved money was released in November 2006, while the second was in January 2007. He said his outfit spent less than 60 per cent of the budget approved by the NPC but chalked up successes in the implementation of almost all the programmes outlined for the celebration, adding that African Heads of State who had attended the AU Summit had been full of praise for its organisation. He said the model and concept behind the AU Village was admired by the Heads of State, four of whom he said had since made approaches to replicate the model. Dr Wereko-Brobby had been subpoenaed by the commission to help find out where he had got the money for the celebration, the amount expended and how it was utilized. He explained that the idea of the celebration was to enable everybody in the country to experience and have a feel of it for the sake of posterity. He said the budget had been mentioned in Parliament by the late former Minister of Finance and Economic Planning, Mr Kwadwo Baah-Wiredu, during which he said the secretariat, was to spend a minimum of $20 million. He said some people, particularly the media, took the statement out of context by committing the word �minimum� to make an issue out of the expenditure of the secretariat and later created the impression as if he had exceeded the budget or misapplied the money. Dr Wereko-Brobby further explained that the delay in the release of the money for the celebration was likely to cause the country an embarrassment so he devised strategies to avert that. He said it was at that instance that he decided to use his own money and raise more from the bank to discharge the work given to him. He said one of the strategies was to first and foremost start the projects by using his own money to the tune of GH�200,000 and later raise the rest from Prudential Bank. He did not state how much he raised from Prudential Bank but promised the commission that in his next submission he would make all the details available. Dr Wereko-Brobby told the commission that Ghana lacked donors and that as a motivation for more donors to emerge there was the need to commend him. He said although he had long been waiting for a commission with jurisdiction to look into the operations of the secretariat because of the various allegations made against it and himself by sections of the media and the people, irrespective of the form of government that would be in place after its mandate, he had been disappointed by the intention behind the creation of the presidential commission. The intention, he said, was to investigate malfeasance against the secretariat. The Chairman of the commission, Mr Justice Isaac Duose, quickly intervened and stated that the mandate of the commission was not to investigate malfeasance against the secretariat. But Dr Wereko-Brobby explained that he did not intend to impugn the commission but that before Mr Justice Duose was appointed to chair the commission that had been the intention of the framers of the law and those who had established the commission. He said that intention notwithstanding, the Justice Duose Commission had conducted its proceedings professionally and satisfactorily and needed to be commended. Touching on the scope of activities which were undertaken by the secretariat, Dr Wereko-Brobby said they covered social; cultural and educational. He told the commission that Ghana could not have celebrated its jubilee without rehabilitating certain structures which had not seen any serious maintenance since they were constructed. Among the structures he mentioned were the Independence Square and its arch, as well as the Black Star Square.