There's no reason any other form of biometrics is less secure than fingerprints. My read of the article is that either the idea of someone not having fingerprints never came up or if that situation was considered it was filed under "we will handle the exceptions via a process to be developed later" and no process was developed. Worse, a process was developed--since we see in the article that some of these people were able to get ID cards and passports, documents requiring fingerprints--but it imposes a massive time barrier on the people.

For one-offs like obtaining an ID card, a one-time imposition of a bit more time might be reasonable. "We've installed fingerprint readers at every location where you can apply for an ID card but retina readers are more expensive so they are only available at the main government office" may be fine if you're referring to a passport issued every ten years. But requiring a fingerprint for a SIM card yet having no backup for that at point-of-sale is not.

This is the flaw in every single system designed by people who largely have no experience with people who have a difference in physical or mental characteristics than the designers. We see it in facial recognition trained primarily on people of a certain skin pigment. Social systems designed by people who are neurotypical. Transport systems implemented by people assuming a base level of technological or literacy skill. The list goes on.

The people doing the designing aren't being inherently mean or malicious, they're simply not thinking. And not thinking is very easy, but makes systems that are very impenetrable to people not included in that thinking.