The president of the maritime trades association resigned on March 26th.
"We were no longer on the same wavelength". This is how Bülent Gülay, president of the Saint-Martin seafaring association since 2005, explains his resignation at the end of last week following disagreements with some of the thirty members of Métimer.
"Since Irma and the Covid crisis, many members considered that I had not been hard enough with the Collectivity and the State to defend their interests" he specifies. Malfunctions of the Sandy Ground bridge, ban on navigation in the French part because of the 120 wrecks which constitute a danger ... several members of the association would have liked more muscular actions to solve these recurring problems. "We did everything we could to alert the relevant authorities, but in the end we are not the decision makers, I do not see what more I could have done and none of them proposed anything something concrete ”defends Bülent Gülay who has the impression of having been the head of a Turk.
At almost 65 years old, he had planned to retire next year from this volunteer position, the time to put afloat the accounts of the association whose grants have been halved this year. But his ears had been ringing for several months and he decided to burst the abscess before the last general assembly. "I grasped the extent of the discontent and announced my resignation to defuse the bomb because I did not want to go to confrontation" he confides. And to comment: "the last GA was therefore held in accordance with the rules and in a friendly atmosphere". Bülent Gülay remains chairman until the election of the next bureau. The Board of Directors has already been appointed and is made up of seven members who will elect the new board on April 9th. "I will preside for the last time, do the handover and be at their disposal if they need help," he says calmly.
From now on, he will devote himself to the Nautical Club, created in December 2017 of which he is the president and whose actions are in line with those carried out by Métimer such as the Fête de la Mer or the Sea Discovery Day. Actions in which some of the members of the association did not recognize themselves but which are dear to him. “I will continue to develop activities for practicing the sea,” foresees the one who was recently crowned Knight of Maritime Merit. A decoration which according to him honors "more than [his] person and is finally the recognition of water sports on this island where no one gives it its true value" (Soualigapost.com)
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