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President John Dramani Mahama Tuesday inaugurated electrification projects for 22 communities in the Tamale South Constituency of the Northern Region. The extension of electricity from the national grid to the communities is in line with the government's efforts to make power available to many communities to improve their lives. Speaking at a joint inaugural ceremony at Kootingli, President Mahama said the government was working hard to ensure that more communities receive electricity. He said under the first phase of the Northern Region electrification project, power was being extended to 400 communities, while an additional 400 communities were to benefit from electricity under the second phase. Mr Mahama said the projects were being executed to ensure that the people had power to undertake income generation activities. Penetration Ghana, he said, was a household name in access to electricity. He stated that currently 76 per cent of the population had access to electricity, the highest in West Africa. The President indicated that during the 2012 electioneering campaign, one of the major requests from Ghanaians was electricity connection to their communities. Consequently, nothing would be left to chance to improve the system, in view of the importance of electricity to the populace. The Member of Parliament for Tamale South, Mr Haruna Idrissu, said the people of the area would forever be grateful to the President and the NDC government. He said with the provision of electricity, the people were now in a position to work to improve their lot. In another development, the President inaugurated an affordable housing project at Lahagu in Tamale. It is being undertaken by Water and Sanitation for Africa (WSA), a pan African inter-governmental agency in collaboration with the Tamale Metropolitan Assembly and the Tamale Community Co-operative Credit Union. The project has a first installment of 200 two-bedroom housing units and a target of 5000 houses over a five-year period across the country.