When Janet Mbugua went on air to read news on 800,000 shillings-a-month-pay on Citizen TV, Kenyans thought that was the end of pyramid earnings. And somehow, they reached a conclusion that she could remain the highest paid TV anchor ever in Kenya. They were wrong!
Now rumors are fire spreading on Kenyan streets that former TV news queen could be coming back to a local TV station with a bang. She is soon to go air on Ksh 930,000 a month.
News that Esther Timberlake (nee Arunga) is joining a local TV station on Ksh 930,000 shillings a month is to shine spotlight on how media owners in Kenya are willing to go to win/retain viewers and advertisers. This is to raise queries whether media houses are ignoring the go-slow seeking better pay staff and hook media legends or just a commercial bait meant to create stiff competition against the well oiled international giant houses raiding the country.
If confirmed, she will replace Kenya’s highest paid TV newsreader Janet Mbugua.
Before she left media duties due to court attendances in 2010, she worked with KTN and Capitol FM stations. Esther, together with Citizen TV’s Lilian Muli-Kanene (on a 255,000 shillings salary), used to be quite popular news girls on Kenyan TV in 2008/2009.
She has studied in Kenya and Australia. She’s a BA degree holder in Communication and Bachelor of Law from Wollongong University in Australia. She’s currently pursuing an online Masters Degree course in Law at Wollongong University.
Esther Arunga’s name was officially changed to Esther Timberlake when she got married to a businessman cum politician Quincy Timberlake and they’ve been blessed with a handsome son, Sinclair.
Esther could be running for a political office next year. It is not yet established whether she could be campaigning as a Senator or a MP.
Meanwhile, CNN has noted that Piers Morgan Tonight will be hosting Esther and Quincy Timberlake this year.
Meanwhile, the Constitutional court is seeking a resolution to the Timberlakes’ crisis yesterday urged the officials behind freezing their accounts to release the assets frozen during the 2010 saga. The total of $ 1.84m was frozen under the belief that it was illegal for a public figure running for a political office to receive money as a gift from international donors. "We have decided to start a process to unfreeze the frozen Timberlake’s assets in an expedited manner," a Kenyan official declared.
Timberlake is a known businessman with the unknown western jewel stones dealers who operate undercover. Deeper investigations further reveal that he is indeed connected to lots of business deals between African sellers and the jewel hungry western dealers. But Timberlake confirms it was shut down on orders of the governor of CBK and the Director of Serious Crimes Unit in 2010. It was quoted that he acquired $70m through theft at CID headquarters in Kenya by then. These allegations were found baseless when the Interpol were contacted and rejected the claims. They confirmed that no investigations of that nature were existing but were rather planted by dimpanists inside PM's office and Ambassador to Egypt David Arunga, who also adds up as Esther's uncle.
CBK has disputed that it instructed BFID officers to carry out investigations and close those accounts using Kenya as a safe heaven to hide their “gift” money and were suspected of flouting banking laws. It also told the judge that the officers who allegedly raided Timberlake’s offices based at Lonrho House under an anonymous name by then were police officers answerable to the Commissioner of Police. Court ordered that a structure of CBK management hierarchy be filed in court to establish whether BFID is one of the departments.
The plaintiff told the judge that they were discriminated against, since no other public figure namely the politicians’ accounts was closed down during the account closure. Several politicians including the Prime Minister are known to be harboring accounts with money sent as gifts from abroad, why only us??
Quincy Timberlake is, therefore, asking the court to declare that the closure of his account was selective, illegal, unjustified and amounted to trespass. He also says his rights to trade were infringed on.