GEORGE TOWN, May 14 — The Goods and Services Tax (GST) will be abolished within the next 100 days, incoming Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng said today.
He reassured the public that the Pakatan Harapan (PH) government will abolish the consumption tax, but pleaded for patience as he has yet to take his oath of office.
“I am not sworn in yet. I can’t issue any orders or official statements on anything pertaining to my portfolio as yet,” he told a news conference here.
He also rejected a notice that has gone viral on social media that the GST will purportedly be scrapped from June 1 onwards, saying the statement is fake and did not originate from him as he is not yet empowered to issue any statement to that effect.
“As of now, the prime minister is the only one to have been sworn in and has the authority to issue statements but he has not issued such an order,” he said.
Lim urged the public not to believe such fake news, noting that a number of them are being recycled.
He noted another piece of news making the rounds was of a tweet purportedly by him to abolish Universiti Teknologi Mara (UiTM) and use the allocation for a PH university.
Lim stressed that the tweet was fake and not by him, and that he would never ask for UiTM to be abolished.
