Dude! You're getting a cell!

Continuing news from the tragicomedy that is the Nagin administration at City Hall:

"Despite trying for more than a year, aides to Mayor Ray Nagin have been unable to determine whether City Hall paid any money to Dell Inc., or received any equipment from the computer giant as the result of an improperly generated purchase order signed by former technology chief Anthony Jones."

Oops!

Jones claims that he issued the $119,027 purchase order "sometime in late 2005 or 2006" so that computers destroyed during Hurricane Katrina could be replaced. That purchase order, by the way, was issued on city stationery, so suggesting that electronic records of the purchase were accidentally deleted on those computers is an excuse that's not going to fly. The city has no records of the purchase, and -- surprise, surprise -- neither does Dell.

Jones was fired on July 18th for the infraction, in conjunction with filing false invoices to hide the escalating costs of the faulty crime camera program. The way things are going with the Nagin administration, the city might as well throw Jones in jail. All that's left is to hire Slacker Steve, the former Dell dude, to deliver a singing telegram to Jones: "Dude, you're getting a cell!"

Many thanks to hoppaloppa, tsand, Deny777, and any other home-commentators on the Nola.com board who enjoyed that joke. My Hewlett-Packard PC, on the other hand, is not amused.