Former prime minister Najib Abdul Razak has taken aim at Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng, asking that he prove himself as someone who stood for the poor and not the wealthy.

"Lim needs to prove that he truly wants to help the B40 group and not only help the rich, businesspersons and the black economy to evade taxes or encourage illicit outflow," the Pekan MP said in a statement tonight.

Najib trained his guns on Lim after the latter earlier today hit out at him for targeting Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad. 

The former premier had singled out Mahathir's statement that there would be no hike in civil servants' salary due to financial constraints, blaming the new Pakatan Harapan's decision to abolish the goods and services tax (GST). 

However, Lim had said the people voted BN out because of the GST. He also reiterated the new government's commitment to help the poor, including in cash aid and petrol subsidy.

Rebutting Lim, Najib said the aid Lim cited were laughable because they were already provided by the previous government.

"I was shocked when I read Lim's apparent evidence to show that he supposedly stand up for the poor. Amid the shock, I was also laughing in between," he said.

Najib said the Bantuan Sara Hidup (BSH) was merely a rebranding of the BR1M cash handout during BN's era.

"In fact, the aid would have been RM800 instead of RM400 had BN won," he said.

Najib also scoffed at the Harapan government's decision to keep the price of RON95 petrol at RM2.20 per litre.

He claimed that Lim had previously complained when RON95 was priced at RM2.10 per litre even though global oil prices were much higher then.

Najib asked Lim to prove his commitment to helping the poor by fulfiling Harapan's promise to reduce fuel prices, abolish tolls and bring down the price of electricity.

"He should also ensure that there will not be price hikes when the sales and services tax (SST) is implemented next month amid prices not going down with the abolition of GST," he said.