This paper discusses Tanzania’s economic reforms in the context of fifty-plus years of independence. Specifically, it focuses on how these reforms have impacted on the mining sector and how the reforms are in agreement with what Tanzania’s founding father Mwalimu Julius K. Nyerere advocated in relation to resource governance. This paper introduces the reader to the theoretical issues on government and economic reforms, and an overview of Tanzania’s reform of the economy following the economic hardships of the late 1970s and the 1980s. Generally, the paper has attempted to review Tanzania’s mining sector on basis of Mwalimu Nyerere’s belief that a country should benefit from her natural resource base. In particular the paper examines issues of ethics and resource governance as advocated by the father of the Nation, Mwalimu Nyerere. In addition to the above, the paper further highlights reforms in Tanzania’s mining sector by analysing successes, failures and lessons learnt in Tanzania both before and after the reforms. To get a better understanding of the above, issues around the legal and policy environment in relation to the mining sector have been analysed in the context of reforms in Tanzania. The paper also discusses other cross cutting (legal and policy) reforms made in Tanzania in the last fifty plus years of independence which have impacted on Tanzania’s mining in relation to Mwalimu Nyerere’s perspectives.