Intelligence officer implicated in media attack in Tanzania

An officer with the Tanzania Intelligence Service (TIS) in Dar es Salaam is being held by the police in connection with the assault on editors of a weekly tabloid Mwanahalisi on 5th January this year, but the police would not reveal his real identity. Reliable sources have confirmed that Ferdinand Mwenda (alias Ferdinand Msepa or Fredy), was recently joined to a list of six alleged conspirators and attackers on editors at Mwanahalisi weekly tabloid offices, is a TIS employee
The police, in a case whose investigations are underway have identified him as a “businessman in Dar es Salaam.” But authoritative sources within the police force have it that the young man in his thirties is a middle cadre officer with TIS. On 5th January this year, at around 08.30 East African time, three young men stormed the offices of Mwanahalisi newspaper and at work were the editor of the newspaper, Mr. Saidi Kubenea and a prominent journalist and a media consultant Mr. Ndimara Tegambwage who has been providing consulting services to a two-year-old newspaper for at least seven months now.
The TIS officer, first arrested on second day after the incident and released almost immediately, only to be re-arrested weeks later, is an alleged architect of the assault in which Mr. Tegambwage sustained a deep cut by a machete on the nape well close to his right ear while Mr. Kubenea had his eyes spilled with unidentified chemical stuff which inflamed them and immediately impaired his sight.
The arrest of a TIS-officer has been a real issue within the police force. While authority at TIS would not wish to have the man’s identity revealed, other suspects are said to have been complaining about their mentor remaining free as they stayed behind bars at a Dar es Salaam remand prison.

Saidi Kubenea, the editor of a weekly Swahili tabloid Mwanahalisi, a leading investigate newspaper in the country.

Fear to reveal the identity of the alleged architect of the assault stems from Tanzania President Jakaya Kikwete’s visit to victims at the Muhimbili National Hospital in the port city within hours of the attack. The biggest question intelligence officers have been asking themselves is, “How will the president feel if he knows the men he visited at the hospital were victims of the dirty work of one of his men?” TIS is a coercive institution enjoying big budgets for secretive operations under the president. It has often been accused of misinformation, deliberate distortion, torture and excessive unaccounted for expenditures. And, it is yet to be known, who sent the TIS officer to attack a media outlet and journalists and how much was promised and, or received in advance for the execution of the task.
Unconfirmed reports have it that the planner of the attack was given cash money Tanzania shillings four (4) million (About US$ 3,800) as advance for seducing and recruiting would-be perpetrators to whom he introduced himself merely as Fredy – a businessman. Most observers in Dar es Salaam find the attack to be politically motivated. Mwanahalisi newspaper has, in the past 10 months, been known for its fraternity with truth and openness. It has been exposing corruption malpractices going in the country, mismanagement and bad governance in general. It has openly named those caught in the web and has doggedly refused to back down. While it has not been the initiator of many down-to-earth expose, it has dug such stories beyond the ordinary, to the surprise of almost everyone and drugged them to the dead end.
That has earned the paper cumulative unfriendliness and bitter resentment, mostly from politicians whose positions and fame have been subjected to exposure and public scrutiny; and thereby eroded them irreparably. Sources suggest that, that group could be central to enmity and consequent mentoring of attacks on media and its personnel. Mr. Tegambwage was probably not the target as he does not own the paper but goes there on an on-and-off-basis as consultant as he does with other media outlets. His style of writing is indeed compelling; his brilliant arguments send out messages that percolates both the bones and brains. Some people may not wish to see him plant ‘seeds of defiance’ as he has contacts with many media houses.

Veteran journalist Ndimara Tegambwage delivers a statement entitled “Freedom of Expression, Access of Information and Empowerment” in a ceremony to mark the World Press Freedom Day in Dar es Salaam (3/5/2008). He is one of the two journalists who were assaulted in a Dar es Salaam newsroom raid on January 4, this year. A court case against the suspects is still in court.

Mr. Tegambwage of Centre for Democratic and Strategic Management (IDEA) is also media consultant at a number of media outlets in the country and member of International Press Institute (IPI), a global forum of executive editors.
Distant sources suggest that the attack on Mwanahalisi was planned in a “kind of a network” that went beyond the city of Dar es Salaam. Intimidatory statements made public by Mr. Kubenea at a press conference in Dar es Salaam, according to press reports, have been made by persons from all over the country, possibly orchestrated to make life difficult for the publisher of Mwanahalisi and his staff.
A good number of “big” politicians have so far been linked to the attack. Journalists in the port city say it is too early to make public names of those mentioned behind the curtain until the hearing of the case starts and lawyers dig deep into statements made by Fredy and other suspects.
The recruitment of a TIS officer into a scum of this nature has a lot to tell on how the secret services of the organ under the President can be misused. And lives of the two victims of attack, and any other vocal journalists, remain in peril.
However, it requires pressure both internal and external to expose the role of TIS in the attack of a media outlet. However, the embarrassment of the president remains unavoidable. Proceedings in court can now provide the best forum at which exposure could be done without stint. Will the police be bold enough to identify the TIS official? What about the political big gun that recruited him: Will he let his agent be exposed, and at his detriment?

A report uncovers media flawed legal systems across Africa

A South African based media practitioner Professor Guy Berger recently gave an inside look at the recent United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) publication he spearheaded on ”Media Legislation in Africa”’. Professor Berger who heads the department of Journalism and Media studies at Rhodes University, located in Grahamstown, South Africa, discussed how the report’s findings on inadequate legal systems could be used and disseminated to push Africa into the vanguard of media law reform. The report has revealed that out of 12 African countries, approximately one third of these are not fulfilling their commitment to international protocols. For example, Tanzania and Kenya do not specifically mention freedom of the media in their constitutions.

Professor Guy Berger of Rhodes University

The report examined the status of journalism in ten constitutional democracies across Africa including Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Mali, Mozambique, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa, Tanzania, and Zambia. The countries were selected on the basis that they “have a comparative benchmarking for stakeholders in them to promote media law reform in the interests of democracy and development,” says Berger.
However, even constitutions with reference to a free media can be insufficient inasmuch as who can and cannot be a journalist can be determined at the whim of authorities utilising ambiguous constitutional provisions. Though as the study points out, the current legislation in numerous African countries is at the more local level often does not meet the benchmark set by international standards of press freedom and freedom of expression and can even conflict with it. For example, in Senegal, the constitution defines what comprises a journalistic career (similar to Mozambique) and requires registration. Similar draft laws are present in Tanzania, Kenya and Ethiopia. In Mali, only individuals with certain qualifications can be editors. Journalists in Nigeria are also subject to registration. In South Africa and Ghana, and to a lesser extent Mozambique, any citizen can exercise their right to freedom of speech through journalism.
The report shows that media laws are also often rooted in unclear provisions. For example, licensing and registration requirements are commonly misused because of arbitrary application—they can be easily denied or taken away. The legacy of criminal defamation and insult laws are also continuously used in all countries surveyed except for South Africa and Ghana.

African editors’ forum launches third chapter on world press freedom day

The breadth of activities on a recent World Press Freedom Day (3 May) 2008 gave birth to a particularly positive development in the fight for press freedom in Africa. The African Editors’ Forum (TAEF) launched its third chapter in Eastern Africa. Sixty editors from Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda, Somalia and Sudan gathered in Nairobi, Kenya to discuss the regional laws and regulations affecting the media in the region as well as the pivotal role they can play in securing press freedom.
TAEF was inaugurated in South Africa in 2003 and continues to grow, Mathatha Tsedu, Chairperson of TAEF, said that this newest incorporation shows “African media practitioners, many of whom work in the coal-face of media repression, have not been cowed into submission.”

TAEF Chairperson Mr. Mathatha Tsedu
The launch was especially opportune as journalists in Eastern Africa work under some of the worst conditions and the independent media is more than often at a low ebb. Specifically, Somalia continues to be the second most deadly country for journalists and scores have fled to find refuge elsewhere.
The meeting’s agenda identified areas in which editors can work to expose corruption and bad governance and to promote the right of access to information. Tsedu said that the fight could begin to be won when it is realized that all African countries have already committed to media freedom through a series of passed protocols. “The problem is that many of these member states pay lip service to the protocols on human rights as well as the right to freedom of expression,” he said.
TAEF recognizes that standing on the bylines will not render full compliance to existing press freedom protocols nor the creation of stronger ones. Thus, under the umbrella of TAEF, editors can work in tandem as intermediary figures between journalists and government authorities to secure press freedom, professional supervisors in the field, and as advocates for open discussion.
Specific to the Nairobi meeting, “TAEF also resolved to create a regional code of ethics which can be a benchmark for journalism conduct in the region,” said Tsedu “The code, once drafted, will be based on the universal ethics that govern journalism, with specific consideration for cultural nuances that apply to the different regions,” he said.
Among the most pressing challenges the new regional body will have to address is, “the repeal of archaic colonial legislation entrenched in the countries within the region that have for decades after independence continued to adversely affect media operations.

Is Ballali free of the alleged charges leveled against him?

Everybody including myself in the country is over perplexed with the recently made statement by State House to the general public, the statement revealed that “Tanzania government has nothing to do with the prime suspect of the loss of billions of Tanzanian shillings, the former Governor of the Central Bank of Tanzania (BOT), Mr. Daudi Ballali”.It’s actually too shameful as well as painful to hear of that. Mr. Ballali who was suspended from his duty by President Jakaya Kikwete in early January this year, has never been seen in public since he was implicated in a huge loss of government funds whose investigations is being carried out by a probing committee.
It seems as if Mr. Ballali escaped out of the country immediately the President relieved him of his duties. In other ways, I can say that his escape is a planned mission properly organized by the government judging from the statement. Days after, his position was taken over by Prof Benno Ndulu, it was officially reported that Ballali was undergoing special treatment in a Boston hospital in the United States of America. From then, it has been a confusion upon confusion with no one giving any definitive clues on his whereabouts.

Former Governor of Central Bank of Tanzania Mr. Daudi Ballali
Since it was earlier alleged that he misused his power of the office and entered into a corruptive malpractices that he managed to squander large sum of money in External Payment Accounts (EPA), this man is still at large despite of the public outcry to have him prosecuted before the court of law. This is a sensitive issue which seems to have been deliberately blocked by higher government authorities. Members of Parliament have increased pressure on the government to explain the alleged personal involvement of the governor of the matter and the opposition legislators in the Parliament have also strove with much efforts to highlight the issue in parliamentary debating chambers, but their efforts have ever since proved futile. Following Ballali’s sacking, President Kikwete formed a team comprising Attorney General Hon. Johnson Mwanyika, Inspector General of Police, IGP Said Mwema and Prevention and Combating Corruption Bureau Director General, Mr. Edward Hoseah to investigate the saga involving the payment of 133bn/- in EPA funds to dubious companies. Neither the government nor the probing committee has made the matter open to the eyes of Tanzanians who are eager to know of its development, and yet still crying with pains as none of either party is there to give out the development of their stolen money.

State House Communication Director, Mr. Salva Rweyemamu.
According to the statement that was made to the general public few days ago by a State House Communication Director, Mr. Salva Rweyemamu with the main subject matter, “The government has no business with immediate former Bank of Tanzania governor Daudi Ballali for now”. However, it emphasized that it would easily find him if it found need to get him back into the country.” I am really upset by this statement as it implies the denial of human rights. With this statement, it clearly shows that the government is not in a position to defend its people.

In his briefing to reporters in Dar es Salaam, Mr. Rweyemamu said “the government will have interest in the whereabouts of the former governor only if he is implicated in the scandal”. But Mr. Rweyemamu must understand the fact that, when President Kikwete relieved Ballali of his duties, already he was satisfied of his direct involvement with the matter, could it not been that, then the President would not have decided to suspend him. Otherwise, what then was the reason behind his suspension?. The government’s statement should be described as “Danganya toto” which literally means “a statement aimed to lure people’s mind”. Without hiding up the truth, it directly shows that scores of top most government officials in the country are involved directly with the matter and that is why the government is looking for the means of escaping. I am suspicious with our government the way it handles the issue, officials who are implicated directly seems to be struggling to get out of a chocking grip which has got hold on their neck, it seems as if they are diverting the evidences already in place and tend to look for other means of escaping in order to free themselves from this biggest financial scandal which has spotted a black mark in the country’s history since independence in 1961.

I could hear people who are crying over the matter, it has now become the talk of the day everywhere including inside daladalas when people are traveling back to their homes. Just imagine with the persistent poverty stricken situation in the country, yet the big murderers continues to shine in the country living the little ones who put them in power suffering. It’s very amusing to see also that other suspects in the already exposed dubious contractual deals such as that one of a Richmond saga, Buzwagi mining contract, Kiwira Coal Mine, and many others the government entered and which of course have caused great losses to the government, and to the great dismay people are surprised to see the suspects are left roaming freely and no any action is taken against them. Who would stand for Tanzanians’ rights in future? When shall we expect another Mwalimu Nyerere in this country?

This is how Africa is terrorizing itself

During his recent visit to Uganda, a Libyan leader Muammar Gadaffi did not only urge President Museveni to rule for life but also inaugurated a committee to ensure his counterpart wins his fourth time in the next election. In view of this, Col. Gadaffi launched the Revolutionary Committee Movement (RCM) in the VIP lounge of the Serena Hotel on March 19, 2008 sources at the function that lasted 45 minutes. His focus if implemented, would plug Ugandan nation into a bloody state. The sprit of democracy allows people to choose their own leaders.
''RCM should make sure that good leaders like Brother Museveni do not leave power simply because of elections,'' Col. Gadaffi reportedly told the group. He also reportedly praised the group for its high level of organisation, saying it had members who could use to change political tides in the country. The Opposition has criticised Col. Gadaffi’s action calling it abominable although not surprising.



President Gadaffi of Libya

While addressing Afro-Arab youth delegates from 30 countries meeting in Entebbe two months ago, Col. Gadaffi said western-style democracy was incompatible with the African system. Why should a leader relinquish power when he is doing good things for his people? he said. There are people who talk about term limits. What are they? A Constitution is simply a document drafted by people. He added ''A leader should only leave power by the will of the people. President Museveni came into power through revolutionary means not by election. How can he simply go?''
This was the second time Col. Gadaffi, who assumed power in a coup in 1969, was urging Mr Museveni to stay on. The first was during a visit in 2001.



President Museveni of Uganda

President Museveni, who came to power in 1986 as the head of a guerrilla army, went on to remove the term-limits clause in the Constitution and run for a third elective term in 2006. What I can say in this is that, Africa is totally terrorizing itself. Most African governments are the major source of violence in their land, because the incumbent rulers becomes reluctant to release power to the majority after general election, even if they seem to have failed. Mr. Gadaffi is a military soldier, the same as Museveni. They both snatched the control of their government by force. None of them used democratic means to achieve the power, and have consistently refused to step down on allegations that, they liberated their people. Ugandans should not be lured by their views, make use of your intelligence and do not be bothered by these two.

Impunity index reveals more journalist killings in two African Countries

CPJ Executive Director Mr. Joel Simon

THE Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) in the world reports that over the last 15years, at least 500 journalists in the world were killed in direct relation to their journalistic work. CPJ also reports that in less than 15 percent of cases the perpetrators have been brought to justice. Sierra Leone and Somalia hold the second and third worst records after Iraq, where 9 and 5 cases, respectively, remain unsolved.
CPJ is striving to raise awareness about the governments, most of which are even democratic, around the world that allow murders with impunity as a tactic to silence the press. CPJ compiled an impunity index and timely released it before World Press Freedom Day (3rd May 2008, an annual occasion celebrated by journalists in the world), to further its campaign to bring justice to journalists who have been killed. The index was devised by calculating the number of unsolved journalist murders, from 1998 through 2007, as a percentage of the country’s population for every nation in the world.
"Every time a journalist is murdered and the killer is allowed to walk free it sends a terrible signal to the press and to others who would harm journalists," said CPJ Executive Director Joel Simon. In Sierra Leone and Somalia, where a morass of conflict has claimed scores of lives, the number of unsolved cases of journalist murders is indicative of larger trends threatening the independence of the press and safety of media practitioners. In Sierra Leone a protracted 11-year civil war, which ended in 2002, nearly collapsed the country and took a large toll on the independent media. Recently, some have suggested that the media in the country has grown. However, what this growth entails is subject to debate. In Somalia, CPJ reports that the press has been sacrificed in large part due to the competing warlords that have run the country since 1991 and the central government that was installed in late 2006 by Ethiopian troops. CPJ is in part filling that role in its fight to push governments all around the world, from Iraq to Sri Lanka to Mexico, to embrace liability in place of impunity in the face of crimes committed against journalists.

Faulty media ethics undermines journalism profession

MEDIA industry in East Africa is now at a Crossroad. This is because of the ill practiced media ethics coupled with lack of professionalism. The situation expounds amid an exponential increase in media outlets within East Africa region, hence caused faulty of media legislation. The habit has become a great shame to media practitioners within the region.
Media stakeholders in Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi have warned that a myriad of archaic colonial legislation and an explosion of media outlets following partial liberalization of the sector has really endangered professional news media. The proliferation of FM radio stations in these countries following the liberalization of the air waves in the mid to late 1990s by intransigent governments, following intense pressure from the international donor community, has made it nearly impossible to enforce professional ethics among the practitioners.
Media professionals from these countries told a recent regional conference on media law and ethics in Nairobi that in some countries the phenomenon of mushrooming media outlets had completely overwhelmed the available number of trained journalists, while crippling archaic legislation hindered media operations.
The result has been hundreds of newsrooms, especially in Tanzania being flooded by either half-baked or completely un-trained journalists to supply editorial content. The situation is no better in Rwanda, Uganda, Burundi or even Kenya, which boasts of a more developed media industry in terms of outlets, quality, editorial personnel and legislation.

Careful observers have noted that, the situation is growing at an alarming rate and is primarily due to extremely poor payments to journalists, photojournalists as well as editors working in these regions, the conference was told. The situation is making it virtually impossible for the media houses in the region to enforce professional ethics developed by the media councils of the respective countries with assistance from international media organisations.
Dissimilar to other East African Community (EAC) member countries, Uganda has two media councils: statutory and self-regulatory. Meanwhile, Kenya, Rwanda and Burundi have statutory media councils whereas Tanzania has a self-regulatory one. “A veritable army of barefoot reporters equipped with pens and notebooks with little journalistic skills exists in Tanzania. The demand for media workers has sharply increased since the mid-1990s forcing media owners to employ people with questionable credentials,” says Dr. Bernadin Mfumbusa of Tanzania St. Augustine University.

According to him, at the time of independence in 1961 Tanzania had only two trained indigenous journalists, by the early 1990s about 600 were employed by the government but this has since soared to more than 5000 mostly untrained journalists by the end of last year (2007). The situation is so bad that Ms. Pili Mtambalike, the Director of the Media Council of Tanzania and professional journalist of more than 20 years says. “These days I am completely ashamed of identifying myself as a journalist or a media professional. I cannot even introduce myself in public forums as a media practitioner because of the way things have deteriorated.”

The reasons why she cannot dare to do that are because journalists have earned un-savoury reputations such as machinga, meaning people without education, kanjanja, meaning people without a professional training and mwandishi, Swahili for journalist/writer labeled as a liar.
The Tanzanian case study, though the most severe, seems to be representative of the EAC member countries’ media industries situation. Media practitioners from the growing number of FM radio stations in Uganda and Kenya are in a different kind of troublesome situation, though they have trained media personnel, poor remuneration has emerged as a compromising factor in enforcing professional ethics. The worst scenario is the hoarding of the FM radio frequency licenses by politicians to serve their political interests. The stations are reputed to employ un-trained personnel, not only as presenters but also as reporters. They do not have any knowledge of media laws and ethics, or heard of the codes of ethics developed by the media councils of these countries. What matters is a good voice on the mike.
Ironically presenters at the conference from all the East African countries concurred that despite being un-trained, presenters on the FM stations in the region were the most highly paid compared to the journalists or photojournalists - the worst scenario being that of non-staff writers attached to media houses - known as correspondents. The explosion of media houses, particularly in FM radio broadcasting in the region and the resulting army of untrained journalists has also given rise to the mushrooming of roof top commercial journalism training institutions as businessmen rush to cash in on the situation.

The Media Council of Kenya (MCK) says that even before the proliferation of these institutions, a lot of gaps existed in the teaching of media law and ethics in journalism training institutions. “It is certainly time that we examine the preparation ground of journalists. There has been a mushrooming of (commercial) colleges purporting to teach journalism. Some of them award degrees after only six months of study. Others teach practical courses without facilities. They churn out journalists who can’t even write,” says the MCK chairman, Waruru Wachira.

Mr. Wachira continues, “We have heard of editors who encounter interns and graduates who apparently have diplomas in photography but have never touched a camera in their lives.” He says that these institutions have contributed enormously to the deterioration of quality journalism since most of them are merely business enterprises without interest in quality. At the same time they do not have facilities, or qualified teaching staff.
According to a United Nations Educational, Science and Cultural Organization
(UNESCO) report, by the end of last year the institutions offering journalism and mass communication programmes in Sub-Saharan Africa in the last two decades had increased by 422 percent.
The report indicates that they had risen from 36 in 1988 to 188 in 2007. A recent study within the East African region identified 40 schools of journalism, the majority being in Kenya and Tanzania. However, only two met the general criteria of being centres of excellence: Mass Communication Department at University of Makere in Uganda and the School of Journalism and Mass Communication University of Nairobi in Kenya. The schools differ vastly in terms of quality education. Only two universities met the criteria as centres of excellence based on curriculum/institutional capacity, professional and public service, external links and recognition, development plan, strategy and potential.
In this unfolding situation, a morass of archaic media legislation and intransigent governments who are bent on controlling the media, mostly to cover their inadequacies, is not making the situation any better.

None of the five EAC member countries is free from crippling legislation. These situations combined have forced the media stakeholders in the countries to go back on the drawing board to find ways and means through which they can uphold the core values of the media and the journalistic profession. At stake now because of increasing threats from within and outside the industry itself are media freedom, independence, objectivity, fairness, balance and truth and professionalism in practice. Despite some of the countries like Kenya having a Media Act, which was enacted last year, there still exists a myriad of legislation, some dating back to colonial regimes, muzzling or impacting negatively the criteria of a free and independent media in these countries.

A senior editor of one of Kenya’s leading media organization, Mutegi Njau says: “From the outset it must be said that Kenya’s constitution has no provision for freedom of the press. Even the constitutional provision for freedom of expression and movement has many provisions that restrict and impose many conditions on the freedoms.” Some of the restrictive legislations identified include the penal code treason and allied offences, sedition, alarming publications, subversive activities, incitement to violence, offences related to judicial proceedings, libel and other defamation laws, regulatory laws and official secrets acts. Others include licensing and censorship, parliamentary standing orders, advertising embargoes, government and owner interferences. Other countries have as many as 27 or more different clauses hidden in national judicial acts that impact negatively free and independent media operations. The most recent came from the Anti-Terrorism acts, which countries like Uganda have enacted. Kenya did not enact the law, however neither was the Freedom of Information Bill, which was being spearheaded by the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ).

“Uganda has a multiplicity of laws governing the media. Until recently, it was extremely difficult for media practitioners in Uganda to keep track of the numerous laws relating to the press, some dating from the colonial days,” says John Kakande, the news editor of Uganda’s leading daily newspaper, The New Vision. However two years ago, The East African Media Institute compiled a book, The Legal Framework for the Media in Uganda, which covered all legislation relating to the media. “The most controversial legal provisions relating to the media laws are in the penal code, the 1995 Press and Journalists Statute, the 1996 Electronic Media Statute and the 2002 Anti-Terrorism Act,” says Mr. Kakande. According to him, over the last two years Uganda’s government has used some of these acts to shut down media houses and to stop the broadcasting of some programmes that rubbed the authorities the wrong way among other repressive actions.

Rwanda, which has been in the international media focus since the 1994 genocide, is steadily developing its media industry, albeit still faced with a number of obstacles. Margaret Jjuuko of The School of Journalism and Communication, National University of Rwanda says that before the conflict the media was segmented into two: the government owned media and privately-owned newspapers. “Even so they were all heavily partisan either for or against the government—either for or against Tutsi or Hutu. Today while the media sector remains key to the post-genocide reconstruction of the country, it is still lacking in terms of the cardinal duty of serving the public interest,” says Jjuuko. According to her, this particularly accelerated by the fact that the sector still lacks professional knowledgeable and skilled media practitioners. The challenge for journalism, particularly in the Great Lakes region, is for the media as well as individual journalists to act more professional, ethical and responsible. What is clear is that despite the huge challenges including those of rapid technological changes, doing away with the archaic repressive legislation from these countries statute books is not going to be an easy task for a long time to come.