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Original article: “Mandato ciego”: Tesorería admite que embarga cuentas CAE sin saber si el dinero es sueldo

Amidst the controversy surrounding debt collections related to the State-Backed Student Loan (CAE), the General Treasurer of the Republic, Hernán Nobizelli, has admitted that the agency cannot ascertain whether the funds in bank accounts belong to salary before executing a garnishment.

Acting under instructions from the Ministry of Finance and without a court order, the Treasury has emptied the bank accounts of hundreds of student loan debtors immediately after they received their salaries, causing financial hardships for numerous families. However, as Nobizelli acknowledged, these garnishments have occurred under a ‘blind mandate’, without identifying the origin of the funds beforehand.

As reported by El Mostrador, this revelation came during the Finance Committee session in the Chamber of Deputies, following a query from parliamentarian Boris Barrera (PC). Treasurer Hernán Nobizelli detailed the operational mechanics of the system: while the Treasury can identify which bank a person has accounts with, it cannot discern the contents of those accounts prior to issuing a garnishment.

This informational blindness means that when the retention order is issued, the state cannot distinguish the source of the funds, particularly whether they correspond to the monthly salary of the affected individual.

According to Nobizelli’s testimony before parliament, should an individual subsequently prove that the withheld funds originated from their salary, they will have the administrative recourse to claim against the Treasury, as well as the judicial route to request a review of the action.

Thus, the agency garnishes first and then places the burden on the affected individual to prove that the money was indeed their salary.

To illustrate the scope of this practice, Nobizelli disclosed that the number of individuals notified about garnishments has reached 1,535. However, he indicated that this figure does not equate to actual monetary retentions, as in several cases, the bank accounts of debtors had no available funds or financial assets at the time of the request.

According to the cited media, during the parliamentary session, Deputy Emilia Schneider (FA) harshly criticized the absence of Finance Minister Jorge Quiroz, openly questioning the government’s commitment to addressing an issue impacting thousands of individuals. In her remarks, the parliamentarian doubted the priority the José Antonio Kast government assigns to the matter.

Subsecretary of Finance, Juan Pablo Rodríguez, responded to the criticisms justifying the absence of the head of the national treasury, stating that he was simultaneously participating in a session of the Senate’s Finance Committee. He also noted that the current administration is willing to discuss the situation of CAE debtors.

The Treasury’s admission regarding the ‘blind mandate’ highlights the limitations of a debt collection system that, in its quest to recover lost funds, may be impairing the economic stability of thousands of households in Chile.

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