Ruto has promised to slash the government borrowing that has funded President Uhuru Kenyatta's infrastructure building spree.
Kenya, whose 2022/23 budget of 3.3 trillion shillings ($27.86 billion) has a deficit of 6.2% of gross domestic product, owes China about $8 billion.
"Kenya has the capacity to handle its debt situation," he told Reuters in an interview, explaining his intent not to re-organize debt if he wins Kenya's presidency in August.
Instead of planning mammoth expressways or new railways, Ruto's campaign is touting a plan to dish out loans to "hustlers" or small businessmen and women, symbolized by his campaign symbol of a wheelbarrow.
He listed the ways he would tackle graft - more money to overcome shortages of judges and magistrates, independent budgets for investigating bodies, and making sure parliament has an active opposition.
"The challenge we have at the moment is the weaponization and the politicization of corruption."
All sides in the campaign have accused each other of corruption and they all deny the allegations.
He listed the ways he would tackle graft - more money to overcome shortages of judges and magistrates, independent budgets for investigating bodies, and making sure parliament has an active opposition.
He brushed off questions about whether he should have resigned if the government he served in was not serious about tackling corruption, saying he'd raised the issue repeatedly and had been able to deliver other benefits to Kenyans.
"I am not a quitter," he said. "Instead of walking away from the people who elected me, I could still do many things."
Kenyatta has backed Odinga, a veteran opposition leader, for president in a bid to sideline Ruto, whom he describes as unfit for office.
Ruto and Odinga were political allies during the disastrous 2007 elections. A dispute over the result left 1,200 Kenyans dead and Ruto and five others facing charges of at the Hague-based International Criminal Court. The case later collapsed.
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