In an immediate response to Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak's Budget review speech today, Lim said GST badly affected the income of all Malaysians.

"GST is not the saviour of Malaysia's economy, it is the saviour of the BN government," the Penang lawmaker said at a press conference in his office today.

He said GST caused businesses to suffer and everybody had less money to spend.

"All this is because BN mismanaged the country's finances and this is why they needed the GST to save them," he claimed.

Lim was responding to the prime minister's announcement this morning that Malaysia’s economy is able to remain stable now due to the GST.

The Penang chief minister expressed his regret that Barisan Nasional continued to portray what is wrong as right by refusing to abolish the GST.

"It is regrettable that there were no efforts to scrap GST at all because people are suffering because of it," he said.

He pointed out that the nation does not need the GST to get its finances back on track, offering up the example of how Penang was able to achieve surpluses each year without depending on GST.

"We don't impose GST, yet we are able to pay the salaries of the local government, record surpluses each year and increase our reserve funds over the years," he said.

He referred to the Auditor-General's Report for 2014 which showed the state reserve funds increased from RM572.50 million in 2010 to RM880.75 million in 2014.

"So I don't agree that the GST saved the country's economy," he said.

On the passing of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) Agreement, Lim said Malaysians will have to bear the burden of it.

"We have fought against it because there is no guarantee that prices will not increase," he said, adding that if prices of medicines were to increase, the people will have to pay for it.

The TPP was approved by the Dewan Rakyat yesterday with 127 backbenchers voting in favour of the controversial trade deal and 84 lawmakers voting against.

The approval gave Putrajaya the green light to sign the United States-drafted 12-nation trade pact, the biggest agreement of its kind in both the US and Malaysia’s trade history.