Godfrey Bess is ready to serve his country

EVER since he was a child, he knew that he liked investigating things. But little did he know that just a few years later, he would engage in studies in this field with the hope of rooting out corruption in his home country.

Godfrey Bess, just 26-years-old, is a Government of Guyana scholar. Recently, he passed with Distinction after pursuing a Master of Science Degree in Forensic Auditing and Accounting, at the University of South Wales in the United Kingdom. And now, he is a certified fraud examiner and is also certified in forensic investigations.

With his chipper attitude, he explained: “Forensic auditing on a whole is a very interesting field; there are technical fields like investigating crimes, being cross-examined and testifying about fraud in a court and various fraud interrogation techniques like interviewing people how to confess to committing fraud.”

His journey did not begin in this field however, he said. Bess explained that he attended the St. Joseph High school and after excelling at the Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) examinations, he pursued higher-level business studies.

Bess shared that he worked for about five years as an external auditor at Nizam Alli and Company Chartered Accountants and later moved into the public sector, where he worked as an internal auditor for the Ministry of Agriculture.

Throughout this working experience, he continuously strived to develop himself and pursued business studies at the Accountancy Training Centre (ATC). As he furthered his studies, he realised that he wanted to do more than just sample testing documents- he wanted to dig deeper into these.

It was here that his passion for rooting out white-collar crime and corruption really began taking shape.

“I was searching for an opportunity to advance myself and I found the University of South Wales, where I later sent an application and was accepted,” Bess shared. And to enable this feat, he said: “I applied to the Government of Guyana (GoG) for a scholarship and they gave me a full scholarship.”

The University accepted him with his Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA) Level II qualifications, he explained, and though he completed his Masters, he is continuing his Level III studies.

NEW ENVIRONMENT
Reflecting on his time in South Wales, he said that the new environment needed some adjusting to.

When he was studying, there were times when it became frustrating and difficult to press forward. Worsening the situation was that he was far away from his family- his support system, and his means of solace.

“It’s just you alone,” he said and noted: “I really don’t know how to cook and I had to cook for myself.”

But according to him, the good thing about the Universities there is that they have a very “enabling” environment.

He explained that the library was open 24 hours a day, and there were supplementary workshops that helped him ‘brush up’ on some areas.

Though he had to put in the extra work here, it paid off, he highlighted. In fact, he shared that while studying there he was one of the better-performing students on the course, and as such he and a colleague were recommended to attend the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (ACFE) Global Fraud Conference, in Las Vegas.

Bess was the only one that received the scholarship to attend the week-long conference, however. At this conference, many international fraud investigators and experts were present and with him being there, it was the first time that a Guyanese made their mark there.

Elatedly, he shared his pride at being able to march in with the Golden Arrowhead- “reppin” the 592 all the way.

Now, he is ready to contribute greatly to his country. “My aim is to assist the government to fight white-collar crime and root out corruption, and to sensitise the public more on the harm corruption can do to a country,” Bess noted.

According to him, many persons take corruption for granted and let it slide. Through the thesis he did for his Masters, he focused on corruption in Latin America and explained: “What I’ve found is that most countries in Latin America are not doing enough to combat corruption,” and added: “There are not sufficient laws to prevent it and the enforcement bodies to detect corruption are not independent enough.

As Bess approaches this journey of fighting corruption, he said, “I want to basically fight corruption because I think corruption is what hinders the economy from moving forward.”