Information hoarding by departments and individuals is nothing new. Expats used to work around the problem by sharing information "unofficially" with each other in order to get the work done. The recent problem is that most of the Expats who shared are gone. The ones that remain are generally too political to share anything or do anything that hasn't been cleared all the way up to VP. When I resigned, most of the Expats that remained certainly fit that bill, especially the ones from certain non-Western countries. My advise is to request everything in writing, cc your division head, and then keep your mouth shut and take it when the big boss chews you out. You won't get promoted, but you probably won't get fired either, because you went through the necessary steps to complete the task and the next guy might not be able to do even that. If you aren't prepared to swallow your pride on a daily basis, leave, or better yet don't come in the first place.
Just my $0.02