I have found the solution to this after much Googling. It doesn't make sense, but everything now works.

Answer is on this page:

http://search.cpan.org/src/TLINDEN/Config-General-2.31/General.pm

Specific text is:

# on debian with perl > 5.8.4 croak() doesn't work anymore without this.
# There is some require statement which dies 'cause it can't find Carp::Heavy,
# I really don't understand, what the hell they made, but the debian perl
# installation is definetly bullshit, damn!
use Carp::Heavy;

Not sure why this works, but my application now launches. seems like the necessary modules were installed but something else is not right.