Consular Affairs' CIO blasts lousy management and contractors who 'rip off the government'

This story has been updated.

Citing frustration with senior management and an employee culture of resistance, Kirit Amin, the chief information officer at the State Department's Bureau of Consular Affairs, in an exclusive interview with Federal News Radio, said he would take a temporary 120-day reassignment within the State Department. An earlier version of the story had said he planned to resign.

"I think we've made a tremendous difference in spite of opposition from people entrenched in the government for years," Amin told the radio station's Jason Miller late Tuesday. "But there were a number of things that led me to resign. I was saying State was doing some contracts which are bad contracts -- that was costing us far more than it should. I said 'Wait a minute,' and they want to cover it up. There is a lot of cronyism and nepotism going on at State."

The Bureau of Consular Affairs did not provide an immediate response.

While Amin told Federal News Radio he was working with State's CIO Susan Swart and federal CIO Steven VanRoekel to find a new job elsewhere in government, his comments to the station may make that difficult.

"The duplication and waste in government is phenomenal, and I was not going to put up with that crap nor will I put up with contractors who will rip off the government," he said.

Haar Sandhu, the bureau's deputy CIO, will take over for Amin on an interim basis, according to the story.