The Pakatan Harapan government will review project spending to make up for the revenue lost from the repeal of goods and services tax (GST), said Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng.

The government is expecting to collect RM21 billion from the sales and services tax (SST) compared to the RM44 billion collected from GST annually by the BN government.

“We do not deny that the revenue base has narrowed so we have to find other measures in order to meet that shortfall.

“We are doing that in terms of reviewing some projects to make sure there is efficient government spending to save these unnecessary costs.

“You would be surprised how much money we spent on some of these projects,” he said during a press conference in Parliament today.

Earlier, he admitted that the GST is a more efficient taxation system.

However, he said, the SST will have less of a negative impact on the people of Malaysia.

The government has reviewed or scrapped several projects such as the Kuala Lumpur-Singapore High-Speed Rail (HSR), the MRT3, the LRT3 and the East Coast Railway Link (ECRL).