Minding govt business: ‘Pearly’ app to streamline public service reporting

A cutting-edge mobile app developed by a rising tech whizz has been launched in an attempt to revolutionise how citizens flag public service issues—from water outages to road repairs—while boosting government accountability and transparency. 

Unveiled during Monday’s St John edition of the Ideas Forum, Pearly—named after the archetypal Bajan neighbour who “minds everybody’s business”—is already live in app stores and represents a bold step towards greater transparency and responsiveness in the public sector.

Roy Morris, director of citizen engagement and media relations in the Prime Minister’s Office, told the gathering that Pearly is designed to modernise how the public service engages with citizens, particularly around complaints and service delivery.

“One of the challenges has been the way citizens are able to report [issues] and also the way the arms of government respond to them,” Morris said. “We’ve been working on an app that is going to make reporting of challenges across the public service a simple and straightforward matter—and then allow the follow-up to be just as straightforward.”

Morris explained that Pearly allows not only for real-time reporting but also for public visibility into how complaints are handled.

“Other members of the public [can] see how the government responds to complaints or challenges that don’t necessarily relate to them specifically, but they’re interested in the quality of government service.”

The app is the brainchild of a local team of nearly two dozen students from the Barbados Community College, led by CEO and founder of the TouchStar Group of Companies, Ramon Dummett.

Dummett, who described the project as “close to our hearts”, said the app bridges a critical gap in how citizens communicate with the government, especially during emergencies.

“We are now about to enter the hurricane season . . . and we see the need to be able to get information to the right persons,” he said. “Sometimes you don’t know which department [is] responsible for what, right?”

Dummett praised the PMO’s commitment to the project, noting that the government team was “highly motivated to solve these problems”.

Already available in the Google Play and Apple app stores, Pearly enables users to send reports to the right government agencies in seconds. But Dummett stressed that this is just the beginning.

“This is not a finished product—it’s a live project. There are going to be iterations,” he said. “We only build great tech because of feedback from people like yourselves. If something is broken, we want to know. If something doesn’t work or you think that it can be done better . . .we’re listening.”

In addition to solving domestic problems, Dummett said the app showcases local innovation and export potential: “Not only are projects like these providing jobs, but it’s also allowing us to export our talent and our skillset… we are having suitors with some of our technologies as far as the US.”

He also underscored the importance of data sovereignty, encouraging Barbadians to support local developers. “We want to be builders of our tech . . . guardians of our own data and our own information. When you work with us . . . you know where your data is, you know where to find the people—we [are] right there in Harbour Road.” (SZB)