Thursday, Jul. 02, 2009

Sanford adds $334 to trip reimbursement

Clerical error cited in payment for trip during which he met with lover

Gov. Mark Sanford on Wednesday repaid the South Carolina general fund an additional $334 after The State newspaper questioned how much he had reimbursed taxpayers for a June 2008 trip to see his Argentine lover.

Spokesman Joel Sawyer said the governor’s office miscalculated meals and miscellaneous travel expenses after The State asked how the $3,000 he repaid Tuesday evening was calculated.

“It was a clerical mistake, period,” Sawyer said. “We made the governor aware of it immediately.”

A Sanford staffer hand-delivered the check to state treasurer Converse Chellis’ office about 10 minutes after a call from the newspaper, the treasurer’s spokesman Scott Malyerck said.

Sanford, under pressure to resign after admitting to a love affair with Maria Belin Chapur, volunteered to reimburse taxpayers for his and a Commerce department staffer’s expenses for the Argentinean leg of a 2008 trade mission to that country and neighboring Brazil.

Records show Sanford met with Argentine business and government officials during the June 24-27, 2008, Argentine portion of that trip.

“But because of his admitted infidelity, he is reimbursing (the expenses),” Sawyer said.

Records show the governor, a multimillionaire, repaid:

• $492.84 for his June 24, 2008, flight from Sao Paulo, Brazil, to Cordoba, Argentina

• $318.42 for his June 25, 2008, flight from Cordoba to Buenos Aires

• $330 for a June 24 flight for Commerce Department project manager Ford Graham from Sao Paulo to Buenos Aires

• $1,395 for food, lodging and miscellaneous expenses.

In addition, records show Sanford reimbursed a Department of Commerce fund $767.32 for additional lodging costs for the governor, an interpreter and ground transportation paid for by Graham.

Sawyer said the governor did not reimburse any of the $4,143.54 cost of his return ticket from Buenos Aires — or Graham’s $870 return ticket — because “you can’t prorate that.”

Reach Wilkinson at (803) 771-8495.

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