GEORGE TOWN, May 14 — DAP secretary-general Lim Guan Eng said he has been able to view the state of the country’s finances and concluded that it will need time and effort to repair.

Lim, who is earmarked to be finance minister pending the disposal of his corruption trial, said during a ceramah at Esplanade here that the country’s financial health was not in good order.

"What I saw was.… I know I need to work hard to bring it back up and revive Malaysia’s fiscal health,” he said to an audience of thousands during the two-hour ceramah held to thank voters.

Lim said he met with various agencies under the Finance Ministry and discovered the size of the challenge that awaits him.

However, he assured the public that Pakatan Harapan (PH) will still fulfil the pledges made during campaigning for the 14th general election.

"Over the past 61 years, Barisan Nasional (BN) has left behind a lot of errors, issues, mistakes so there are a lot of things for us to resolve and it will not take one day, one month or one year to resolve so I hope all of you will give us time to resolve all these problems,” he said.

The former Penang chief minister also told the audience that he will never forget the state and the support that voters had given him in the past 10 years.

He also sang a song about the Goods and Services Tax (GST) song before reiterating that the federal government will abolish this.

Lim also added that his successor as CM, Chow Kon Yeow, has already made many requests on behalf of the state.

"For now, I can’t issue any statement on this yet because I am not sworn in, but I will definitely work hard for Penang and Malaysia,” he said.

Earlier, Chow said he met with Lim to exchange views with his predecessor on Penang’s needs.

"I hope he will continue to give us support and work with Penang for a better Penang and a new Malaysia,” Chow said.

The ceramah ended with Lim’s saying his final farewell to Penang while thanking Penang voters for their support.