[T]he front office could inject itself more into the management, as opposed to the substantive work, of this combined political-economic section whose supervisor does not routinely pass along guidance or input from the front office. Also, the section head is the same rank as several of the officers he supervises and had been the designated rater prior to the OIG inspection. The OIG team noted to embassy management that it is an inherent conflict of interest for an FS-02 political cone officer to rate another political or economic officer of the same rank as they will be reviewed by the same promotion board. It is in the supervising FS-02’s interest to downplay the efforts and achievements of an officer of equal rank, especially a subordinate considered by others to be highly competent (DS-italics added). When the OIG team pointed out these problems to the Ambassador and DCM, they agreed to assume rating and reviewing responsibilities for the section’s three subordinate FS-O2 officers respectively.