PESHAWAR: The Government of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (GoKP) has released the ‘Citizens’ Budget’ document for commoners as the provincial government’s fifth annual budget for 2017-18 was presented in the assembly Wednesday. Titled as ‘Putting People First’ the Citizens’ Budget has been published for the fourth consecutive year, in line with GoKP’s agenda for reforms, openness, and transparency. This year’s ‘Citizens’ Budget’ document focuses on the GoKP’s achievements of the last four years also highlighting budget priorities set forth as strategic objectives close to the citizens’ lives and key projects of the Annual Development Plan (ADP) for the financial year 2017-18. The key areas are economic growth and job creation; improvements in quality of life through education and healthcare provision, citizen empowerment; building peace in the province through security and rule of law; good governance and institutional strengthening; preservation and promotion of culture and sports and initiatives for youth and women. Citizens’ Budget clearly reflects all the sectors with their budget and the outputs to be achieved from this budget especially in health, education, agriculture, local governments, security, sports and culture. It reflects the impact and importance of the budget for the cross section of the society i.e. students, teachers, doctors, business community, farmers, the poor and marginalised etc. The information given in a simpler manner means involving them in the governance processes and enabling them to know their rights as well as to make the government accountable for spending the budgeted amounts on their well-being. The Citizens’ Budget document was first introduced during 2014-15, as a reflection of the GoKP’s commitment to improve citizen’s access to budgetary information and promote accountability and transparency in managing public finances as intended by the promulgation of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Right to Information Act 2013 and Right to Services Act 2014. It is meant to enable people to effectively exercise their right to public scrutiny of state representatives, access to information and provision of quality services. Both English and Urdu versions of the KP Citizens’ Budget 2017-18 have been made available online at the official website of the Finance Department (http://financekpp.gov.pk) where a public opinion poll has also been setup to get feedback from site visitors.