If you were to refer to the records of the Pension Funds Adjudicator over the two decades,  you would see that there have been a great many instances of maladministration in pension funds, over a long period.   And when you consider that, in today's money, R1 million will only buy a 'minimum wage' pension,  a fund with "only a few million Rands" in assets would be a very small one indeed.
Add to that, 'vesting clauses' which effectively eliminated benefits to perhaps half the members, and a figure of "R4 or 5 million" being "left over", or 'surplus' as it is called,  is certainly plausible.