Gilland leaves for taxpayer-funded Dubai trip

Horry County Council Chairwoman Liz Gilland left Horry County Friday for an eight day trip to the oil-rich Middle Eastern nation-state of Dubai.

Gilland will spend eight days in the region in hopes to bring economic development back to Horry County.

News13 spoke with Gilland as she unloaded her luggage at the Myrtle Beach Airport Friday afternoon.

Gilland told News13 her past trips overseas have brought development back to the county and projected her Dubai trip would bring back 3,000 new jobs to Horry County, Gilland said Friday as she walked into the airport.

Gilland is one of 24 people from South Carolina who will make the trip with the South Carolina Department of Commerce, including a Murrells Inlet company, according to the state commerce department.

The county paid Gilland’s registration fee of $1,000 and another $1,131 to cover flight accommodations to Dubai, according to Horry County Public Information Officer Lisa Bourcier.

The state commerce department will not cover any other expenses, according to communications director, Kara Borie.

As county council chairman, Gilland is allowed a $5,500 expense account, which runs from July through June.

Other council members receive $4,000 for operating expenses, according to Bourcier.

The county has not paid any hotel accommodations as of this posting, according to Bourcier, but once Gilland returns, there may be more expenses paid by taxpayers stemming from the trip.

“I’m not going to be stupid about it. We are going as economically as possible. I’ll be sitting in one tiny little seat for 15 hours. It may sound like a glamorous trip, but I’ve done those 15 hour trips and they hurt,” Gilland said.

According to some one council, Horry County taxpayers will feel the most pain, “Why are we paying an economic development corporation here in the county $400,000 a year? It would seem to me he might be the one to make the trip,” councilman Gary Loftus told News13.

Loftis, a Princeton University graduate, is a widely recognized economics expert and professor at Coastal Carolina University.

“I have no problem with using travel money to foster economic development, relationships, but I think they need to be realistic ones,” Loftus said of the Dubai trip.

Gilland, who said the state commerce department, invited her on the trip, disagreed with Loftus, “There’s just no telling what kind of doors will open, but if you don’t go, you don’t have any opportunity. This is within my travel budget and hopefully it will result in some significant investments in the Horry County region.”

The trip named, “South Carolina Trade and Investment Mission to the United Arab Emirates Dubai, Abu Dhabi,” pairs South Carolina businesses and officials with potential trade partners in the foreign country, according to Borie.

Gilland is one of 24 South Carolinians making the trip; but the only elected official in the News13 viewing area, according to the commerce department.

There is one Murrells Inlet business making the trip, but the state commerce department declined to name the business.

The state commerce department will not fund the trip, according to Borie, but is working through an agency within the United States Department of Commerce to organize the trip and meetings with Dubai businesses.

The state commerce department will also not cover any hotel, meals or travel, according to Borie.

Horry County taxpayers fund a county economic development corporation at some $400,000 a year, but according to the Myrtle Beach Regional Economic Development Corporation chairman, Jimmy Yahnis, no one from the county’s economic development corporation is making the Dubai trip.

In its Dec. 15, 2008 issue, Newsweek magazine published a story on the financial crisis in Dubai headlined, “Financial Paradise Becomes a Mirage: The world’s economic woes finally have reached the nation-state of Dubai, and fortunes are crumbling.”

In the article, reporter Christopher Dickey quotes a senior official in one of Dubai’s largest real estate development companies as saying, “A lot of people are going to get hurt. A lot of dreams are going to be shattered.”

The article went on to say that foreign workers in Dubai are jobless and being turned away from the country and that “Skyscrapers remain unfinished,” Dickey wrote.

Gilland said the financial crisis in Dubai won’t stop her from looking for investors there, “At issue here is jobs over here for our people. While their economy is having the same struggles that everyone in the world is having, but there are still companies over there that are looking to invest and the United States looks really, really good right now.”

In recent years, Gilland took heat from fellow council members over foreign trips including two trips to Japan, two trips to Germany, and China in hopes to bring industry back to the area.

Gilland points to the Hitachi Corporation deal she said she helped bring to Horry County when the company created 25 to 30 additional jobs at its Metglas facility’s $20 million expansion in Conway.

Loftus said the economic benefits of a Horry County relationship with Dubai are limited, “About the only think I can think of is establishing some sort of a capital investment in tourism. I don’t think that we can go to Dubai and expect tourists from Dubai to come to Myrtle Beach. I think that’s a stretch.”

Gilland is scheduled to return to Horry County Saturday March 28.